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English is weird
Morituri:
--- Quote from: cybersmurf on 23 Nov 2020, 03:14 ---
Not to be nitpicky or something, what you mean is called Diaeresis.
And yes, it would be quite helpful.
--- End quote ---
Actually, I did in fact mean the umlaut. Where spun is the past tense of spin, but the spün goes next to the knïf and fork when you're setting the table.
Because I'd far rather have letters for most of the extra vowels, and save digraphs for diphthongs or vowels pronounced as separate syllables.
cybersmurf:
--- Quote from: Morituri on 24 Nov 2020, 13:59 ---
--- Quote from: cybersmurf on 23 Nov 2020, 03:14 ---
Not to be nitpicky or something, what you mean is called Diaeresis.
And yes, it would be quite helpful.
--- End quote ---
Actually, I did in fact mean the umlaut. Where spun is the past tense of spin, but the spün goes next to the knïf and fork when you're setting the table.
Because I'd far rather have letters for most of the extra vowels, and save digraphs for diphthongs or vowels pronounced as separate syllables.
--- End quote ---
I stand corrected.
Pilchard123:
...said the physiotherapy patient.
Case:
The little e's atop the a, u and o vowels are an alternative/older symbol for the German umlouts. https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umlaut
Not sure whether the Umlaute are strictly speaking 'additional vowels', or merely "sound-shifted" pronunciations of the original ones. Um-laut means something like "re-sound(ed) (vowel)" - if you can pronounce them, you'll notice the ö and ü differ from the original vowels merely in a little shift in the position of the tongue. (https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vokaldreieck)
Morituri:
In English we have something of the same idea of 'shifted' pronunciation. When we are in grade school we are learning the difference between "long" and "short" vowels - and if we pay attention we notice the same thing about the distinction in pronunciation being mainly the position of the tongue.
I went looking for an article on this and found this one. It's a little more general than I was looking for in that it discusses English vowels generally.
https://www.speechactive.com/english-vowels-ipa-international-phonetic-alphabet/
Among its more spectacular claims is that English has 20(!) vowel sounds, although I know of no variety that distinguishes all 20. You might need to learn all of these if you intend to be able to produce every variety of English, but knowing nine or ten will make it possible to effortlessly communicate with English speakers because we tolerate some 'accent' in vowels mostly without noticing. You'll just sound like someone used to a different dialect, and in English dialect is a relatively minor issue.
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