fricative /v/

To be called a fricative a sound segment must be articulated with such a narrow stricture (or close approximation or sufficiently small aperture of the articulators) as to cause turbulent airflow during the medial stage of its production. The auditory result of this turbulence is friction. So for a sound segment to become a fricative certain auditory/articulatory/aerodynamic conditions must be fulfilled. I need not go into most of  these details. This has most competently been done by J.C. Catford in his book Fundamental Problems in Phonetics (Edinburgh) of 1977.

To articulate a v-sound we need a passive and an active articulator: the passive articulator is represented by the lower edge of the upper front teeth; the active articulator is the lower lip. It can be the upper or the inner surface of the lower lip which is tightly pressed against the upper front teeth. It's my impression that for English speakers the contact is preferably made with the inner side of the lip. The pulmonic egressive airstream has to force its way through the tiny curvy gaps which exist between the teeth and the lip surface. (And, of course, the vocal chords must vibrate.)
German speakers who produce an English /v/ which is too similar to the /v/ in German words like Waldi, Wanne, Wasser, wo, wann should press the lower lip much harder against the upper teeth and exaggerate the resulting friction. Don't worry if you overdo it. It'll wear off.

There was an Old Man of the West,
Who wore a pale plum-coloured vest;
When they said, 'Does it fit?'
He replied, 'Not a bit!'
That uneasy Old Man of the West.

minimal pair sentences with /v/ and /w/

Here's a list of minimal pair sentences containing words contrasting /v/ and /w/:
(as at the 11th of December)

Listen carefully!

1. My friends had a lot of wines/vines in their basement.
2. His poetry is becoming worse/verse.
3. Her story was disturbed by a wail/veil.
4. A wiper/viper was used in the experiment.
5. The teacher used the wiser/visor of the two students.
6. You'll find it in the west/vest.

some tongue twisters with /v/ and /w/

1. Wild vines make fine vintage wines.
2. Victor’s friend Vincent rinsed his vests in vinegar.
3. Vivacious Vivian loved to voice vigorous verses vociferously.
4. Stephen vainly viewed vast vales with vacant eyes.
5. Vincent vowed vengeance very vehemently.
6. Woollen vests for wailing wolves are worn in the vast woodlands. 
7. For once, weary Wanda's woolgathering lost its vim and vigour.
8. Which witch winds white weasel wool well?
9. Very volatile vets visited several wives.
10. Which is worse verse - Wendy's verse or Wayne's verse?

Enjoy!

/v/ in German and English

Here are two waveforms that show the differences between German /v/ and English /v/ in the two phrases _G<Wir-Gefühl> (~ feeling of togetherness) and _E<veer left>:

 There's no friction superimposed over the voiced section at the beginning of the phrase <Wir-Gefühl>.

In the waveform for the English phrase the non-periodic superimpositions are clearly visible (and audible, of course).

phonetic Volkswagens

credit: www.tour-life.com

The pronunciation of <Volkswagen> in English (e.g. /ˈvɒlksˌwæɡən/) is phonetically interesting as the word contains two consonants that prove difficult for German speakers of English: /v/ and /w/. 

These two sounds are a kind of shibboleth that blows many a German's cover:

• "I like roast wheel with mushrooms."
• "Hawthorne wrote The Minister's Black Whale."
• "It's a collection of poetry and worse written by Shakespeare."
• "The match was broadcast life."
• "The Wicker of Wakefield is a novel by Oliver Goldsmith."

Many Germans use too weak a contact for their /v/, which then sounds like [ʋ]. Because of its labiodental place of articulation the [ʋ] reminds native speakers of /v/. On the other hand the weak friction and the slightly rounded or protruded lips remind them of a /w/. The [ʋ] may also be associated with a pronunciation error of /r/ typical of some (even famous) native speakers of English - the 'weak r':

• [lɔːd mǝntgʌmǝʋɛ^h]
• Woy Jenkins (aka Baron Jenkins of Hillhead)

Advent wreath

credit: Christian Pfeiffer

<Wreath> is pronounced /riːθ/; the <w> is a silent letter: All word-initial digraphs <wr> are pronounced /r/ as in wrangle, wrap, wrath, wreck, wrestle, wriggle, wrist, writ, write, writhe, wrong, wry, etc. with Wroclaw as an exception because it may be pronounced /ˈvrɒtslɑːv/ or /ˈvrɒtslæv/
<Advent> is pronounced /ˈædvent/ or /ˈædv(ə)nt/. It's of Latin origin: advenīre as a verb meaning 'to arrive' and the Latin noun adventus 'arrival'.
What's in a wreath etymologically? OED tells us that it's derived from Old English wriþan 'to twist, coil'.
The plural <wreaths> is pronounced /riːðz/ or /riːθs/.

The history of the advent wreath, its spread from the Old to the New World is interesting but beyond the scope of this blog. Mary Jane Haemig, associate professor at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota, published an article in 2005 on "The Origin and Spread of the Advent Wreath", Lutheran Quarterly 19,3: 332-343, in which she shows that the advent wreath became popular in 19th century Germany and entered the American Lutheran practice in the early 20th century.

an astronomical anus?

credit: www.nasa.gov

A few days ago I talked to a colleague of mine about the solar system and its planets. One of these planets is Uranus. As I can't switch off the phonetic lobes of my brain, I immediately pondered on how (dangerously) close the pronunciation of this planet's name is to some words for less pleasant (?) objects or properties:

• urinous
• your anus

Let's see what the experts say (GB pronunciation considered only)!

1. EPD
1. Uranus /ˈjʊərᵊnəs, ˈjɔːrᵊnəs, jʊəˈreɪnəs, jəˈreɪnəs/
2. urinous <not listed>
3. your anus /jɔːr, jʊər, jər ˈeɪnəs/ (linking r assumed)

2. LPD
1. Uranus /ˈjʊər(ə)nəs, ˈjɔːr(ə)nəs, ju^əˈreɪnəs/
2. urinous <not listed>
3. your anus /jɔːr, jʊ^ər ˈeɪnəs/ (linking r assumed)
3. ODP
1. Uranus /ˈjʊərənəs, ˈjʊərn̩əs, ˈjɔːrənəs, ˈjɔːrn̩əs, jʊ̵ˈreɪnəs/
2. urinous /ˈjʊərɪ̵nəs, ˈjɔːrɪ̵nəs/
3. your anus /jʊər, jɔːr, jər ˈeɪnəs/ (linking r assumed)

NAERD #1

I read chapter 1 of An Introduction to the Pronunciation of North American English by Jørgen Staun. What strikes me is the fact that the author not only tries to avoid the term 'General American' but also fights his corner on calling this pronunciation variety a dialect and not an accent. This is how the author tries to justify his decision:

The frequent concurrence of lexical and pronunciation boundaries explains in part why there is no single non-regional standard American English pronunciation in North America comparable with Received Pronunciation (RP) in English English,which is the standard non-regional pronunciation in England. The existence of a non-regional standard pronunciation like RP in England has lead [sic] to the notion of accent, which refers to a typical and specifiable pronunciation of a language which is characteristic of a geographical region or a social group. Such a standard non-regional pronunciation is justifiable in England because - so supporters of this concept argue - RP is characteristic of a social group and because other accents than RP can be used with the standard grammar and lexicon. The absence of such a variety in North America explains why the term dialect, rather than accent, is used [...].(25)

Accent is the way someone pronounces a language. Everybody therefore has an accent.
Dialect encompasses not only the way someone pronounces a language but also the grammatical forms, syntactical structures and the vocabulary that are used in discourse. As the book is explicitly aimed at "undergraduate university students"(11) this distinction should not be diluted, blurred or abolished.

Staun rejects the term 'General American' as "an actually existing reference dialect, because it ignores such regional distinctions as those established most recently by ANAE [= Atlas of North American English] [...]" (27). He proposes the term 'North American English Reference Dialect' (= NAERD) and delimits it both negatively and positively:

• the Northern Cities Shift,
• the Southern Vowel Shift and
• the split of the TRAP vowel in the East

are restricting features.

• The Low Back Merger,
• the use of the TRAP vowel in bath, staff, etc.,
• rhoticity,
• dark l in lose, lust, etc.,
• flapping of /t/ and /d/,
• yod-deletion

and a few other features characterise NAERD positively.

There are a few typos and technical imprecisions:

• "homogenous" should be "homogeneous" (20);
• "North American Continent" -> "North American continent" (20);
• Hans Kurath's LANE was not published "in 1943" but in three volumes between 1939 and 1943 (22);
• LANE did not only report "both lexical differences and variation in pronunciation" but included grammatical differences as well (22);
• "the existence [...] has lead to the notion [...] -> "has led" (25);
• Kenyon & Knott's Pronouncing Dictionary was not published in 1953 but in 1944 (26);



credit: Eric Johannson

• the flap is "found when unstressed t and d occur between vowels or between an r and a vowel [...]" (31); I wonder how /t,d/ can be unstressed;
• the term "English English" (25) sounds awkward to me.

OED online relaunched

OED online has been relaunched.