La fonima <î> in el glhetg

[Óïn Ursüm]

E-ça-qe el temp isch venescu per ricunsiderarh el statüs da <î> (representind la fonima /ɨ/) in el glhetg? Perziunalmint, sieu son me piaça, es sieu representaziun speliçaziunal zon'à'iens text 'n caractréu zistingat, Talossan.

Come zireva S:reu Tomas:

I cannot recall Ben ever hoping or trying to get rid of î. He raised a question about whether /ɨ/ could be considered an allophone of /i/ next to nasals, since you find a mixture of words with the sequence în/îm and in/im in the dictionary, but /ɨ/ also occurs in other environments as well, e.g. îrt "art", so there is no question in my mind that it is a phoneme in Talossan, and I always pronounce it where it is spelled. I wouldn't have a problem with allowing /i/ as a variant pronunciation of /ɨ/ before nasals, at least in pretonic position (i.e. before the stressed syllable). Post-tonically (after the stressed syllable) I'm not so sure — here it occurs mostly in the adverb ending -mînt, and pronouncing that as /mint/ feels quite odd to me. I could accept the pronunciation /mənt/, though.

[Sir C. M. Siervicül]

Éu füt el zefençadeir pü läxhir dal fonima <î> in el Regipäts quand qe l'Arestada da 2007 füt debatada, mas la situaziun non füt sa clar qe Segnhor Tomás zireva. Aicì Regeu Róibeard zireva:

I'm not sure we ever completely worked out the in/im/în/îm thing. For a long time I've grown weary of the sound [î] and I'd be comfortable abolishing it completely or (better yet) leaving it as an optional variant pronunciation of i before n or m. In words where the sound appears independently (i.e. not under the influence of n or m) it should probably remain.

Éu penséu qe noi non cunvent atenziun forçéu àl fraça "in words where the sound appears independently." Mas c'esteva parç qe, pü schpeit, Segnhor Tomás zepicteva (sür Witt X) Regeu Róibeard s'opiniun com'acest:

Ben said he'd grown weary of the sound î and would be happy abolishing it completely, or leaving it as an optional pronunciation of i before m and n (the latter being his preference). (Personally, I'd be in favor of getting rid of the other un-Romance vowels å and û too.)

Es pü schpeit in acest fil:

The big issue which led to Ben's saying this was a discussion on the fact that Latin in-, im- sometimes turn up in Talossan as in-, im- and sometimes as în-, îm- -- with no regularity at all, just whatever form popped into his head when he created a particular word. This accounts for the majority of words containing î, and Ben got so agitated trying to work out what to do about the situation that he ended up getting sick of î all together, and wanted to get rid of it or just leave it as an optional variant of i in those 2 prefixes.

Now, personally, I like the sound too (although you might be interested to know that Ben, having instituted it in Talossan, never pronounced it correctly himself!) but as you say, it seems to confuse learners. So should we keep it? Or change all î to i as Ben suggested? Or allow a variant pronunciation for people who find it too hard?

Acestilor stätsmints noi persuaçevent qe Regeu Róibeard es Segnhor Tomás füvent reçeitíus, à mhíus, àl idéa d'avolarh aceasta fonima.

[Dr. Txec dal Nordselvă]

The Guizua lists the phoneme î as a historic letter and I cannot find how la fonima would be pronounced.

[Óïn Ursüm]

Apr 13, 2013 21:25:41 GMT -6 Dr. Txec dal Nordselvă said:

The Guizua lists the phoneme î as a historic letter and I cannot find how la fonima would be pronounced.

Phonetically speaking, it's a bit like an with the tongue pulled back slightly.

[Sir C. M. Siervicül]

Yeah, something like that. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_central_unrounded_vowel. I'm not sure I've got it right. But then again, according to Sir Tomás, he's the only Talossan speaker to ever get it right (i.e. even Ben got it wrong).

[Óïn Ursüm]

Wikipedia says that that sound is the <u> of North Welsh, so I can do a decent "impression" of it.

However, I think most of the reactionary feeling (including that of Sir Tomás) is based on the fact that written Talossan looks very different when that letter appears often.

[Ián B. Anglatzarâ]

Apr 18, 2013 2:56:46 GMT -6 Óïn Ursüm said:

Wikipedia says that that sound is the <u> of North Welsh, so I can do a decent "impression" of it.

It is also the sound of Russian ы.

[Iustì Carlüs Canun]

Apr 18, 2013 6:28:53 GMT -6 Ián B. Anglatzarâ said:

It is also the sound of Russian ы.

That's the only reason I can pronounce it.