Re: How many vowel lengths are there

From: Jacques Guy (jguy_at_alphalink.com.au)
Date: 09/15/04 

Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 17:54:19 -0700

M. Ranjit Mathews wrote:
>
> A Hungarian who lived in France for a time said that he wouldn't spell
> the French name Thoma with a long o. I was surprised by this because
> in Malayalam, Thoma is spelt with a long o and the French
> pronunciation sounds to me quite close to the Malayalam [t[OmA] spelt
> with 2 long vowels <O> and <A>.

In my idiolect (which has long and short vowels) it's [tOma]
both vowels short. The closest to a minimal pair I have found
in the /a/ in "Jacques" ([Za:k] long) and in "jatte" ([Zat],
short).

> How many vowel lengths are there in common use, according to
> phoneticians? How many of these vowel lengths are considered short and
> how many are considered long?

In common use? Two I'd say. But I gather that Estonian has
three, and so do several Iroquoian languages (from memory).
In Italian, for instance, stress is realized as vowel length.
Breton has either consonant length or vowel length (the
two are inextricably interrelated).

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