Vocalist.org archive


From:  "Lloyd W. Hanson" <lloyd.hanson@n...>
"Lloyd W. Hanson" <lloyd.hanson@n...>
Date:  Sat Nov 11, 2000  3:02 pm
Subject:  Re: Rhyme nor Reason


Hello Caio and Vocalisters;

You wrote:
> I've read and noticed it's a tendency of 'educated' speakers in the US.
> Once I was watching an interview with an American scientist and she said
> things like '...shIUn', for 'information', for instance, and it's very
> frequent to hear 'OL', as in 'all' for ending "-ALs", instead of the
> schwa, as in POTENTIAL.

> But you shouldn't forget that there is a tendency of all colonized
> countries to keep older forms of the language, both in pronunciation and
> grammar, and also spelling, and to have an independent evolution from the
> same basis. Many things we say in Brazil are exactly the way the
> Portuguese spoke in the 1500's, when our colonization started. When it
> comes to the US, you hear things like 'gotten' and regular forms of verbs
> ( burned, etc ) that are older forms of the language. The British dropped
> 'gotten' and exchanged 'burnt' for 'burned' because their people had 'bad
> English' ( which became standard because educated people were
> 'contaminated' ). Americans didn't create that. The British corrupted the
> language, and still do it much more than Americans ( not pronouncing the
> ending Rs is another 'mistake' that became standard, as well as the
> unpronounced ending vowels in French. Had the French been literate in the
> past and they'd probably distinguish plurals when speaking ).
>
> Sociolinguists have long abandoned the belief of ONE standard LANGUAGE and
> many dialects. Now they know it's many different dialects and a standard
> one. If that's true within one society, why to expect ONE LANGUAGE from
> different societies.

COMMENT: Thank you for such a clear and concise analysis of the roots of
this discussion. The qualities of a language when installed in another
culture or geographic entity does tend to remain more intact than in the
original country. Another example is Quebec French which more closely
resembles 17th century French than it does modern French, or so I am told.

Another aspect of English that I have noticed is a willingness to accept
almost any pronunciation, especially from those to whom it is a second
language. If I mispronounce a word while traveling in Europe, the natives
are very quick to correct me. But English speaking people accept
distortions of the language every day and seldom, if ever, correct the
foreign speaker.

Right now an Austrian chef is on TV and is repeatedly pronouncing Vegetable
as Wegetable. Yet, when we teach Freshman to sing German we insist that
they make the distinction immediately between the pronunciation of the /v/
in German as different than in English and they are able to do this within
a week of study, Make a mistake like that in Germany and they will
immediately correct you but when German speaking people do it in English
such a correction is seldom offered.

Your example of "shIUn', for 'information" is another example of the Italian
pronunciation carried over into English with not a nod toward correcting
this mistake.

Once, on a train in Italy, I told a very well educated native that I was
going to Spoleto which I incorrectly pronounced as Spolehto (/E/ rather
than the correct /e/). She did not even recognize the name of the city at
first and when she did she was very quick to correct my pronunciation. I
was grateful for her correction but more than a little surprised at her
honest inability to recognize the city from my pronunciation. Yet we in
the US hear unimaginable pronunciations of Chicago, for example, and always
know what city the foreign speaker is attempting to pronounce and accept it
as OK.

I mention this only as an interesting anomaly and not as a criticism of
anyone who is speaking English as a second language. I wish I had another
language that I could honestly call my second language.

Your use of English Ciao is quite wonderous. I envy your ability in another
language and I am sure English is only one of many other languages that you
speak.

Regards
--
Lloyd W. Hanson, DMA
Professor of Voice, Vocal Pedagogy
School of Performing Arts
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, AZ 86011


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