Re: Quadrilingual

From: Miguel Carrasquer (mcv_at_wxs.nl)
Date: 09/22/04 

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 14:03:11 +0200

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 10:27:39 +0200, Ruud Harmsen
<realemailseesite01@rudhar.com> wrote:

>Wed, 22 Sep 2004 09:57:11 +0200: Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@wxs.nl>: in
>sci.lang:
>
>>>Apical r is very common among large groups of native speakers of
>>>Dutch, without Spanish influence, in the Netherlands and Belgium too.
>>
>>I wonder if the Amsterdam accent has apical /r/ and /s/, It
>>certainly has the first, and the /s/ has a palatal quality
>>which may well be due to its being apical, I'm not sure.
>
>Neither am I. Could be. If I try to make a Castillian s ("nosotros
>somos)", it then try to use it in Dutch words, it doesn't sound
>Amsterdam-like, but rather very "netjes, bekakt".
>Perhaps the Amsterdam s is slightly rounded?

The Amsterdam /s/ tends to [S], it has a shibilant-like
quality, but it's not quite [S]. Perhaps it's an apical
[s], but sounded a little more back than the standard
Spanish variety (more like the standard Basque variety).
I'd have to listen closely.

>The
>Is the Modern Greek s the same as the Castillian Spanish one? And that
>of Finnish?

I have no idea. I don't normally hear the difference unless
I'm paying close attention. One would also expect random
individual or local variation (like retroflex/bunched /r/ in
AE) in languages where the difference doesn't matter (i.e.
the vast majority of languages, except, to my knowledge,
Northern Portuguese, Old Castilian, Basque, and Old High
German).

>I heard rumours that certain northern Portuguese dialects or accents
>has apical s (for written s) and also a 'normal' one (for written ç,
>which is z [T] in neighbouring Galician.

Yes, I've read that too. This was also the case in Old
Castilian (before laminal /s/ shifted to /T/).

>I haven't yet heard anyone talk like yet.
>Perhaps Basque has of had this feature also?

Standard Basque has <z> (laminal /s/) and <s> (apical /s/).
Some dialects (notably Bizkaian) have lost the distinction,
and both <z> and <s> are pronounced apical [s], while both
<tz> and <ts> are pronounced laminal [ts].

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@wxs.nl