Lecture 2: Vowel Pronunciation

[Hooligan]

Welcome back to class, students. Now that you have seen some Talossan words (by looking up sets of words using the Översteir), it is time to learn how to say those words out loud. That is what we will discuss this week and the two weeks that follow.

Essentially, there are three sets of things you will need to know about to have a complete picture of Talossan pronunciation. Those three sets of things are: how the vowels and vowel groups are pronounced, how the consonants and consonant groups are pronounced, and the (thankfully small) number of irregularly pronounced words. Don't be intimidated; I will try to get you through all three sets as painlessly as possible. This week, we will tackle the vowels. Here we go....

PART 1. VOWELS APPEARING ALONE

There are eight vowel letters in Talossan. The English speaker, who is used to only five vowels, might be a bit afraid when hearing this, but there is no need to be. Five of the vowels, of course, are the same ones that an English speaker is familiar with -- a, e, i, o, and u. As we'll see in a minute, they don't always sound the same in Talossan as they sound in English, however, but that is not Talosssan's fault -- it is English's fault.

As every English speaker knows, the same English vowel can sound very different in different words. For example, consider the English vowel a in the word par and the same vowel in the words pat and pane and pare. All four of those sound very different. However, if those same words were Talossan words, the vowel a would sound the same in both of them -- pat would sound just like the English word pot.

Unlike English (and just like other Romance languages), vowels in Talossan do not change sounds (very much). Each of them has one particular sound, and its pronunciation is almost entirely uniform from word to word.

The Letter a

We have already covered the fact that the Talossan vowel a is always pronounced as in the English par or spa or ha. This might be a bit of an overstatement -- one thing to keep in mind is that when a word ends with an a (and is not stressed -- we'll talk more about stress later in the class), then it acts just like the same letter in English acts in those same kind of words: it becomes an "uh" sound, like in words like sofa and cola. That's all there is to say about the vowel a -- it is always "ah", unless it is at the end of a multi-syllable word, and not stressed, when it is "uh".

Examples from the vocabulary assignments from last week:

• matra (= mother). Here the first letter a is pronounced "ah" and the second one (since it ends a multi-syllable word and is not stressed) can degenerate to "uh" (though "ah" is still not incorrect).
  
• felicità (= happiness). Here the letter a is stressed (that is what the accent mark above the a indicates), and so it is given the full "ah" sound (it does not degenerate to "uh").
  
• qátor (= four). Here is another a that is stressmarked. Whether it is marked or not, though, this letter would still be pronounced "ah", since it is not at the end of a word.

Historical note: prior to the 2007 Arestada, the letter a when it ended a word and was to be pronounced "uh" was marked with a circumflex -- â. A great many Talossan words in "Classic Spelling" end with -â. The 2007 Arestada recognised this change-to-"uh" as a natural phonological phenomenon that did not need to be marked, which is why an "Classic Spelling" word like amâ (= grandmother) is now ama in "Modern Spelling".

The Letter ä

But what if there is a need for the sound that the English letter a makes in words like pat and cat? Well, that is where one of the non-English vowel-letters comes in. That is what the letter ä is used for. And that's all there is to say about ä -- if you want a Talossan word that sounds like the English word cat, then you want cät.

Sometimes, though, it is not very easy to pronounce ä as in English "cat" -- for example, when the ä comes before the letter r. In such cases, ä is often pronounced as the vowel sound in English care.

Examples from the vocabulary assignments from last week:

• Listopäts (= October). This word rhymes with the English word "cats".
  
• bräts (= arm). This word rhymes with the English word "rats".
  
• är (= air). This is pronounced just like the English word.

The letter ä is relatively rare in Talossan -- it only appears in about 600 words. In almost all of the words where it appears, it is followed by a consonant, then by the letter s; this is seen above in the examples Listopäts and bräts, and is of course something seen in the commonly-seen word Regipäts, which means "Kingdom".

Historical note: Prior to the 2007 Arestada, Talossan had another letter, å, which indicated pronunciation of the vowel sound in the English words "law" and "long". Many North Americans do not distinguish this sound from the vowel sound in "ah", however people in some regions (including around Talossa) do. People who do not distinguish between the sounds in "cot" and "caught" are said to have undergone the Cot-Caught merger. For people like that, who don't know what the difference might be, think of a person who lives on Long Island in New York, saying the words "Long Island"; it's almost an "oo-uh", but linguistically, it's a single vowel sound all its own. The 2007 Arestada removed å from the language, since the letter was allophonic with a and it was used in fewer than 150 words. This is why an "Classic Spelling" word like fuilån (= sea gull) is fuilan in "Modern Spelling".

The Letter e

"Ah" and "uh" are not the only two sounds that the vowel a makes in English, though. It makes a whole other sound in English words like ate and late. That brings us to the vowel e. The English speaker is used to the vowel e making many different sounds, and even often being silent. This is not the case in Talossan. The Talossan vowel e is always pronounced as in the English word cafe and the Spanish word olé.

This is not the full sound of the vowel in English say, but is the first half of it. English speakers tend to add a y-sound at the end of words like cafe; try not to do that and you have the e of Talossan (and other Romance languages).

This vowel sound often degenerates to simply "eh" as in the English egg.

Examples from the vocabulary assignments from last week:

• vermel (= yellow). Both e's in this word are pronounced either as in cafe or egg. Although it is common for an English speaker to pronounce the first syllable to rhyme with fur, it is more proper to give that letter e the more Romance sound described here, so that it rhymes with fair.
• tres (= three). This word is pronounced just as the Spanish number, and much like the English word trace.

Historical note: Prior to the 2007 Arestada, Talossan used to have the vowels ë and ê. The vowel ë was used to indicate the degeneration of the vowel into the sound as in English "egg". These vowels were removed from the language by the 2007 Arestada, when they were recognized to be allophones of the vowel e.

The Letter i

In English, the letter i can make many different sounds, as seen in the words ice, rip, and pizza. In Talossan, the letter is always pronounced as in pizza and Rita and police.

Examples from the vocabulary assignments from last week:

• dit (= finger). This word rhymes with the English words treat and neat.
• gitara (= guitar). The first syllable of this word also should be pronounced to rhyme with English treat and neat.
• índigeu (= indigo). The first syllable of this word (which is stressed) is pronounced to rhyme with the English word "seen".

Historical note: Before the 2007 Arestada, Talossan also had the vowel î, so this vowel is seen in "Classic Spelling". The vowel î was a sound that was borrowed from the Russian language, and of all the Talossan speakers, only Ben Madison (who had spent time in Russia) knew exactly how to pronounce it. Even Mr. Madison had grown tired of the letter by the early 2000's and was encouraging the Committee to remove it from the language. The 2007 Arestada did so, and respelled all words that used it.

The Letter o

Once again, English uses the letter o for more than one sound, as seen in the words odd, oven, and over. The Talossan vowel o is used only for the sound in over and or. English speakers sometimes (without even knowing they're doing it) add a little w-sound to the end of their "o" sounds; try not to do that when pronouncing Talossan.

Examples from the vocabulary assignments from last week:

• tornavitz (= screwdriver). The first syllable of this word is pronounced as the English word torn.
• foren (= oven). The first syllable of this word is pronounced like the English for.

The Letter u

The letter u In Talossan is usually pronounced as in English dune, although it can degenerate to the "uh" sound, especially in words beginning with "un-" (as in English under). You're safest just sticking with the sound in dune, but keep in mind that English speakers often add a little w-sound to the end of their "oo" sounds; try not to do this when pronouncing Talossan.

Examples from the vocabulary assignments from last week:

• uschor (= wife). The first sound of this word is pronounced "oo", not "uh".
• vucul (= uncle). The u's in this word are pronounced "oo".

The Letters ö and ü

The two other vowels in Talossan are ö and ü. Both of these are rather foreign to the English speaking tongue (although if you've heard people speaking German, you have heard these vowels), so I'll cover them together.

There are many different ways that the sounds of ö and ü can be described to an English speaker; perhaps none of them are perfect, but here is mine. For the letter ö, use the sound in English book and good, and you will be pretty close. And for the letter ü, put your mouth in the position to say the vowel in English book and good, and while keeping it in that position, say the English "ee" sound (as in "free").

Like I say, those instructions may not be perfect, and other instructions can surely be found. In point of fact, many English-speaking Talossan-speakers just understand that they are not good at creating these sounds, so they don't bother, and they use the sound o when they see ö, and they use the sound u when they see ü. Doing this is okay -- it simply marks you as having an English-accent when speaking Talossan, but there's nothing wrong with that. But if you have experience with German, or if you are able to sound out the Talossan vowels ö and ü better, frankly, than I am able to do, then good for you!

Examples from the vocabulary assignments from last week:

• cüzin (= cousin) and cüzina (= a female cousin).
• alüminüm (= aluminum).
• lüxüs (= luxury).
• sücra (= sugar).
• Gün (= June).
• tü (= turkey, the bird).
• purpül (= purple).
• ärör (= error).
• böf (= ox)

The vowel ü is used in many Talossan words, but ö is much less common. The letter ö is only used in about 400 words, and the majority of those uses are in the combination ös, which is akin to the English -ous suffix, as in the English words hideous and tremendous.

Stressmarks on Vowels

Before moving on to part 2 of the lecture, in which we'll discuss the behavior of vowels when they are combined with one another, I want to say just a quick word about the stressmarks that are used in Talossan. Earlier in the lecture, I used a few examples that each contained a stressmarked vowel (those examples were felicità, qátor, and índigeu), but I have tried to avoid using stressmarked words in examples this week, because I am leaving most of the discussion on stressmarking for a later lecture.

However, it is important for you to know about the various stressmarks to help you as you try to pronounce Talossan words. And so, we will cover just a bit of ground here.

The vowels a, e, i, o, and u can be marked to indicate stress by adding either an acute accent (as in á and é) or a grave accent (as in à and è). Both types of accents (acute and grave) mean the exact same thing, and either can be used. In practice, it is considered stylish to use the grave accent only on the final letter of a word -- for example, cüriösità (= curiosity) is considered more stylish than cüriösitá, although both are entirely proper.

[The only exception to this rule of style involves the few short contractions that are built from the Talossan word à (= to). It is considered more proper to continue the use of the grave accent in those words, such as the contraction àl (= to the).]

The vowels ä, ö, and ü are stressmarked by changing the umlaut (the two dots above the letter) into a circumflex (^). That is, the stressmarked form of ä is â, the stressmarked form of ö is ô, and the stressmarked form of ü is û.

Stressmarks are only used in Talossan when the vowel to be stressed is not in the "default stress position" -- this is something that we will discuss in more detail in a later lecture. The point here is that although a vowel might not be stressmarked, it may still be the one that is stressed in speech. What this means, however, is that stressmarks (especially certain of them) are actually fairly rare in Talossan. For example, there are only two words in the entire language that use the stressmarked letter â, and only one word in the entire language that uses the stressmarked letter ô. Even û is only seen in fewer than twenty words.

Examples from the vocabulary assignments from last week:

• piatì (= cymbal). This two syllable word is stressed on the second syllable, so that it sounds like the English sound "pyah-TEE".
• cócüs (= cook, the occupation). Here, the stressmark indicates that the first syllable is to be stressed, so that the word sounds like the English sound "KOH-küs".
• décadi (= decade). Here again, this is an indication that the first syllable should be stressed in speech, so the word sounds like English "DAY-kah-dee".
• esperançù (= hope). The final syllable is stressed here.

Historical note: Prior to the 2007 Arestada, Talossan used the letters ô and û (and, as discussed above, â) differently than they are used in "Modern Spelling". For example, the vowel combination ou, which is pronounced simply as "oo" (as discussed in Part 2 of the lecture) was spelled as oû in "Classic Spelling".

PART 2. VOWELS APPEARING IN SEQUENCE

The discussion of the various vowels that was given in part 1 of this lecture only applies to vowels when they appear alone -- that is, when they are not part of a multi-vowel combination. Those multi-vowel combinations are what we will discuss now.

This isn't as scary a topic as it might seem. English speakers are very familiar with the fact that two vowels adjacent to one another will often make a single sound, one that is different from the sound that either of the vowels will make if it was alone. For example, the English word pout is pronounced differently from both pot and put, and yet it is a single-syllable word. So what is going on in pout is that the vowel combination ou creates a single sound. This is called a "diphthong" (a two-letter vowel combination that makes a single vowel sound).

Talossan diphthongs and polyphthongs (which are combinations of three or more vowels) are thankfully not very difficult to list and to understand. Most of them are simply common-sense. For example, the Talossan diphthong ei is pronounced exactly as you would think it would be -- as the Talossan e sound, followed by the Talossan i sound, run together, just as you hear in the English words say and ray. In fact, for that Talossan diphthong, the tendency of the English speaker to add a little y-sound (like in say and ray) is not discouraged in Talossan.

In fact, just the simple rule that you should "say both vowels together" covers so much ground that there is not much more to say about the Talossan vowel combinations, except perhaps to see some of them in action.

Examples from the vocabulary assignments from last week:

• piatana (= plane, the tool). The diphthong in this word is pronounced "yah".
• lavadoira (= washing machine). The diphthong here is pronounced as in the English word "toy" and "boy".
• piolet (= ice pick). The diphthong in this word is pronounced "yo".
• viens (= one). The diphthong here is pronounced "yay" or "yeh".
• vuit (= eight). The diphthong here is pronounced like the English word "we".
• Maitzi (= Tuesday). The first syllable of this word is pronounced as the English word "my".
• Januar (= January). This word contains two diphthongs (ja and ua) and so is two syllables long. The second of these diphthongs (ua) is pronounced as English "wah".

A couple of vowel combinations are worth specific discussion, though. One of these is the combination ou, which is not pronounced as an English speaker would expect. In Talossan, ou is not pronounced as in English "out" or "pour", but is always pronounced, essentially, with the o silent. That is, it is simply pronounced just like the Talossan letter u.

Examples from the vocabulary assignments from last week:

• tambour (= drum). This word rhymes with the English word lure.
• souvenir (= souvenir). This word is pronounced exactly as in English.

Another vowel combination that is worth discussion is the very common Talossan combination eu. This combination appears at the end of a great many Talossan words, and is not a sound that is very common in English. The Talossan eu is pronounced like the English vowel sound from "lip" followed by a w-sound.

Examples from the vocabulary assignments from last week:

• patreu (= father) and fratreu (= brother) and espoçeu (= husband).
• crisomileu (= orange) and negreu (= black) and braneu (= brown).
• Comándereu (= Commander) and Leftenanteu (= Lieutenant)

Notice, however -- and this is very important -- that the vowel combination eu is not the same as the also very-common combination éu. The combination éu is pronounced in two syllables, with the first of them stressed -- as in the English phrase grey ooze.

This difference (between eu and éu) is due, of course, to the stress mark. We will discuss stress in more detail in a future lecture, but for now it is important to know that when you see éu, this is not the eu diphthong. If the eu diphthong were needing to be stressmarked, it would be marked eú (however, no Talossan word actually has this feature; eú is never seen in Talossan).

Examples from the vocabulary assignments from last week:

• bléu (= blue) and biançéu (= white)
• siglhéu (= drill).

Parsing Longer Vowel Combinations

Consider the two example words doua (= two) and noua (= nine). These words are pronounced "doo-uh" and "noo-uh". In these words, we see one vowel combination ou that is followed immediately by another vowel (a). In this case, the proper parsing of the combination is as (ou)(a), instead of as (o)(ua) (which would be prounounced "oh-wah").

Deciding how to properly parse three or more vowels that appear adjacent is not difficult. If you allow common sense to govern, you will almost certainly be right, but if you prefer to follow rules, here is what you need to know. First, remember that the letter i always will group with a vowel that follows it. Second, remember that the letter u, when in the middle of a set of adjacent vowels, will never group with the vowel that follows it. Third, remember that both of these letters (i and u) can be followed by diphthongs, and -- as long as those diphthongs do not begin with an i or a u -- this creates a "polyphthong", which is a series of three or more vowels that make a single vowel sound.

Examples from the vocabulary assignments from last week:

• cámera videoeasca (= video camera). The four adjacent vowels in the second word here are all pronounced in separate syllables. This is because eo, oe, and ea are all not Talossan diphthongs.
  
• iaurt (= yogurt) is a single syllable word, with the vowel combination pronounced as the English "yow".

Doubled Vowels

In English, some vowels are repeated to indicate a specific pronunciation. For example, coop is pronounced differently from cop and weed is pronounced differently from wed.

Otherwise, in English, is not very common to see a vowel repeated right after itself. Typically this is seen in English only when a prefix is added to a word, such as in cooperate and reentry and in English, often a hyphen or other mark is added to assist (coöperate and re-entry).

In Talossan, doubled-vowels are extremely rare, and a simple rule suffices to describe their pronunciation. That rule is that if the doubled-vowel is oo, then each of the vowels is pronounced separately (as in English cooperate). For all other doubled-vowels, the pronunciation is the same as if the vowel were single. For example, the Talossan word fiirtà (= pride) is a two syllable word with the first syllable pronounced as the English word fear, while coordinat (= coordinate) is a four-syllable word.

The Letters j and w

In Talossan, the letters j and w are considered to be vowels, not consonants. The letter j is (almost entirely) equivalent to the letter i and the letter w is (almost entirely) equivalent to the letter u.

I say "almost entirely" for a couple of reasons. First of all, the letters j and w are never seen except in diphthongs. That is, you will never see or use either of j or w unless it is adjacent to a vowel, and forming a diphthong with it. This seems like common sense, especially to someone used to spelling English words. For example, the Talossan word virt (= green) would never be spelled vjrt.

Secondly, the letter j also differs from the letter i in one other respect. We have not yet discussed consonant pronunciation, but here is a sneak preview. The letter c is always pronounced as the English letter k except when it is followed by an e or an i -- in those cases, it is pronounced like the English "ch" as in chair. For example, the letter c in the word felicità (= happiness) is pronounced like the "ch" sound in the English word "cheat". Another example word from the assignments last week is cervieþa (= beer); the initial sound of this word is also as in "chair".

What does this have to do with the letter j? Well, as I said, j is equivalent to i except in a couple of ways, and one of the ways is that j does not affect the pronunciation of a preceding letter c the way an i does. For example, the c in the word Slovacja (= Slovakia) is pronounced just as in the English equivalent. Notice that if the letter j were instead an i in this word, this would not be true; the word would be pronounced "slo-vah-chah" instead.

The letter w is different from u in the respect that while u (when in the middle of a multi-vowel combination) does not combine with a vowel that follows it, the letter w does. This behavior of u and w is actually very common-sensical to the English speaker. For example, in the word Manáweg (= the Milwaukee River), the vowel chain is parsed (á)(ue) (pronounced "AH-weh") and not as (áu)(e) (pronounced "OW-eh"). In pronunciation, this often makes little difference.

The letter w is very rare in Talossan; it is only used in a few dozen words. The letter j is used in about 180 words, most of them words in which the j follows a c to preserve the hard pronunciation of the c in front of the Talossan i sound.

It is important for the English speaker to remember that the Talossan letter j never actually sounds like the English letter j. It is equal to the letter i, and typically this means that it manifests itself as the English sound made by the letter y in a word like yellow.

Examples from the vocabulary assignments from last week:

• Januar (= January). The first syllable of this word is pronounced like the English word "yahn".
• Julia (= July). This word begins with the syllable "yool".
  

There we have a high-level overview of the pronunciation of Talossan vowels and vowel groups. In fact, this lecture probably went into far more detail than was strictly necessary for you to be able to pronounce any vowel you encounter in Talossan.

Next week, we will cover the pronunciation of consonants in Talossan. We have already talked about one of the consonants (c), because that letter is affected by a following vowel. I mention this because there is some unavoidable bleedover between vowel pronunciation and consonant pronunciation, so we will actually learn just a little bit more about vowels when we discuss the consonants next week. As one example, we will circle back next week, and say a bit more about c and its behavior when it is followed by a diphthong. As another example, the Talossan consonant q is another letter that (like c) takes a different sound when followed by a specific vowel (u, in this case).

I hope that one of the things that you take away from this lecture is the fact that the Talossan vowels are very regular in their pronunciation (far more than the vowels are in English). If any of the lecture was unclear, I am of course available to answer questions.

Soon, I will post the vocabulary words that were turned in to me as parts of your assignment this past week, and also of course I will also be posting the assignment for next week.

[Hooligan]

A student asked for a better explanation of this passage from the lecture:

As every English speaker knows, the same English vowel can sound very different in different words. For example, consider the English vowel a in the word par and the same vowel in the word pat. Those sound very different. However, if those same words were Talossan words, the vowel a would sound the same in both of them -- pat would sound just like the English word pot.

I am sorry that this was unclear. The intention of that passage is to say that in Talossan, every instance of the vowel a is pronounced as in the English word pot and off and moss.

I was illustrating that if par and pat were Talossan words, they would both have the same "sound" to their a's. While in English, pat rhymes with the English word cat, a Talossan word that is spelled pat would rhyme with the English words not and pot.

Let me know if this clarifies that passage.

Hool

[Eðo Grischun]

It was me.

I am having great difficulty working my way round the letters 'a' and ä.

Now I get the fact that 'a' is pronounced like "ah" as in spa and par, unless at the end of a word where it degrades to an "uh" sound.

BUT, my trouble is here. You say that the letter "ä " is pronounced like the English word cat.

I cant see the difference. (It may be the Scottish accent getting in the way) but I pronounce the words Par, Spa, Cat and Rat all pretty much identically. So the "ah" sound is what im really making with words. I cant seem to work out how to say the word cat without "ah" in the middle... can you help?

[Hooligan]

Éovart --

Yes, I suppose it may be that your particular form of English does not have the vowel sound ä. In America, the words cat and cot are pronounced very differently, but it may be that in Scotland this is not the case.

Wikipedia has this, which might help. The bolded text is the sound of Talossan ä.

In English, the letter "A" by itself usually denotes the near-open front unrounded vowel (/æ/) as in pad, the open back unrounded vowel (/ɑː/) as in father, or, in concert with a later orthographic vowel, the diphthong /eɪ/ as in ace and major, due to effects of the great vowel shift.

This may not help very much, however, if in Scotland, pad is also pronounced the same as pod.

It seems, though, that one way that the Talossan ä sound is often written is as æ. Does this perhaps help you? When you, as a Scot, see æ, do you pronounce it differently than an a? If so, this is perhaps the sound you will want to use for Talossan ä.

Wikipedia offers this page describing the "near open-front unrounded vowel" which is Talossan ä. There is a sound sample available on that page as well, so that you can hear the sound of this Talossan vowel.

Other words which, in American English, contain the sound that is Talossan ä (in case any of these help): ant, man, can, ran, ban, attic, map, radical, bad, sad, and, capitol, cap, avid, advertisement, hat, cattle, mass, tan, hand, land, mat, bat, rat, sat, ax, tax, tap, whack, after, calf, half, laugh, staff.

Some Americans use the Talossan ä sound in the word "marry", differing it from the word "merry" and the name "Mary". I myself, being from the American West, say all three of those words the same, as I am a victim of the Mary-Marry-Merry merger that you can read about, and perhaps that page too will assist you.

Let me know if any of this helps.

[Eðo Grischun]

does the letter "ä" sound much like the Spanish word for "to" .. a, as in a form of a short and more abrupt "ah" sound while sort of filtering out the h?

[Hooligan]

Sept 13, 2009 20:19:09 GMT -6 Eðo Grischun said:

does the letter "ä" sound much like the Spanish word for "to" .. a, as in a form of a short and more abrupt "ah" sound while sort of filtering out the h?

No, I'm afraid that the Spanish sound you are talking about is equivalent to the Talossan vowel a, not ä.

I suppose that the best way to instruct you as to how the vowel ä sounds is the sound sample that you can hear on this page on Wikipedia. Let me know if you cannot play that sound sample (it is in an .ogg file format), and if so, we will see if we can find another sample file on the Internet that would illustrate the sound of the Talossan vowel ä.

Hool

[Eðo Grischun]

got it. Thanks for the help, I see the difference now. The problem here was definately my Celtic-ness. Basically, I pronounce the same sounds you are referring to but the other way around.

cool, cool.

[Dréu Gavárþic'h]

Januar (= January). The first syllable of this word is pronounced like the English word "yawn".

Wouldn't that give the a sound an au sound? I may be wrong, but wouldn't it be pronounced more like a Bostonian saying "yarn" (yahn)?

[Xhorxh Asmour]

We must be careful when showing Talossan sounds based on American
pronunciation, because depending on the region, for example, the word
CAUGHT may be pronounced as kaht or kaut (as in law).

If you say, "I sleep in a bad bed", the A in BAD sounds like Talossan ä, and the e in bed sounds like the ea in head (Talossan e).

[Hooligan]

Éovart --

Ah! I see now that yes, I had assumed you used one of the sounds for both of the Talossan vowels, when in fact you used the other of them! This can be seen on the page on Wikipedia corresponding to the Talossan vowel a which lists regionalisms including Scotland.

Xhorxh and Dréu are both right.

I am not as consistent as I should be in using "ah" for the sound (that I make) in "la", and "aw" for the sound in "law" (which before the 2007 Arestada, Talossan indicated using the letter å)

This is because to me, "ah" and "aw" (and "la" and "law") are pronounced identically, since my own speech has undergone the Cot-Caught Merger.

Also, a further distinction between the vowel sounds I am writing as "ah" and "aw" seems to be known as the Northern Cities Vowel Shift and is a feature of English spoken where Dréu lives, and also where the Cestours live.

So I apologize for using "aw" when I should use "ah" in examples, and I will need to ask you guys to keep me on my toes.

In other words, Dréu was right that when I used "yawn", I should have used "yahn" -- even though I myself pronounce those two sounds exactly alike, I do know that others do not.

Xhorxh is right, as well, that there are so many regionalisms in English, that I necessarily come with my own Western-U.S. predispositions, and although I certainly don't mean to teach others to speak Talossan with the accent I have, the fact that my speech has undergone various vowel and other mergers means that I may inadvertantly do so.

Hool

[Xhorxh Asmour]

Let me put my two cents in - not trying to demean your excellent job, Hool, which shows your deep knowledge of the subject.

I confess I've found the course a little too dry and demanding. There should be something with everyday dialogues and simple, practical exercises and sound files. Also, images give you a taste of the language being used in live situations, make the lessons more attractive and help memorize words more easily..

The way it is now, people will learn how to write quite well maybe, but not to be (more or less) fluent in the spoken language

[Hooligan]

Thank you, Xhorxh --

I do think that I have geared the course to be perhaps more dry than what you are describing. Although I can try to "liven it up" some, I do think that perhaps my instructional style is more what we are seeing here, and less along the lines that you describe.

I suppose what we need as a companion or follow-up to this course is a different course, perhaps named "Practical Talossan", that could be taught by someone as expert in teaching languages as you are. Hint, hint. :-)

Hool

[Aspra Roseta Laira]

Lord Hooligan,

I am quite impressed by your knowledge of the language and your fine organization of this course. I believe that you are going about it just right for what we need at this level. I cannot imagine delving straight into conversational Talossan without the knowledge of the history, orthography, and pronunciation first. I found it very useful to have students come up with their own lists of vocabulary from which we will surely study in order to (someday) have that conversation in Talossan. I commend you for the hard work you have put into this.

Sreu Asmour must remember that we are only on the second lecture of many, and the information we take in now is necessary groundwork in order to have more practical conversations. (Think back to Day 2 of ANY language course you have taken. The pronunciation of the language comes about then -- and basic vocabulary is introduced.)

Of course I'd also be interested in any ideas for initiating the a Talossan Conversation course once this class ends. Interested instructors apply within the main university threads.

[Dréu Gavárþic'h]

I like it Hool! I've never been much of a fan of lively language courses. This is plenty lively for me.

Also, a further distinction between the vowel sounds I am writing as "ah" and "aw" seems to be known as the Northern Cities Vowel Shift and is a feature of English spoken where Dréu lives, and also where the Cestours live.

Damn straight. Brooklyn all the way.