I have a #French #phonetics question:
It sounds, to my American ears, like the French front vowels are systematically lowered/opened when nasalized, relative to the letters they're written with. (Which reflect their etymological ancestry, if I understand correctly.) Is this a thing? Is there something (in English) I could read to understand this better?
@stevegis_ssg Can you give an example? @lukito
Well like "vin" (wine). Things written with that vowel usually tend to have [i] in French, but "vin" sounds more like [vɛ̃] to me, or even [væ] except nasalized (I can't figure out how to get the ~ on the æ right now.) All the words that start "em-" sound more like a nasalized English ahm- to me. That kind of thing.
(P.s.: Thank you!)
@stevegis_ssg Sounds like you’re correctly processing what you’re hearing, but perhaps not able to repeat it aloud? @lukito
@stevegis_ssg You mean the French from the English? @lukito
More the French from the Gallic Latin, or the Gallic Latin from the Classical Latin. I learned ['win.əs] for vinus, e.g.
@stevegis_ssg Probably for the same reasons my southern husband doesn’t understand a word my Aussie friend says, and vice-versa. @lukito
@AlliFlowers @lukito
Oh, it's not that I can't say it that way. (Though I struggle to get my husband to; he seems to expect the pronunciation and spelling to agree, even though he's a native English speaker!) I just wonder why those sounds have diverged so (and so systematically) from their roots.