Klarinet Archive - Posting 001124.txt from 2003/04

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Pronunciation/Spelling
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 00:47:40 -0400

On Wed, 23 Apr 2003 13:38:41 +0100 (BST),
roger.shilcock@-----.uk said:

> I'm not sure I'm competent to deal with all your questions. I did mean
> that speakers of a language with a written form tend to regard the
> written form [and] as the norm and so pronunciations come into use
> based on the sounds which the written characters are held to
> represent.

So, what you might call the meaning -- the pronunciation -- of a group
of letters changes? That would be like the change of meaning between
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of a written slur, perhaps.

Can you give an example?

> I wasn't trying to say anything in particular about Italian, which is
> a case of a language which was originally a written standard becoming
> a widespread spoken language; Urdu is another such example.

How do you mean? Did Italian spread in a written form, then? It does
seem surprising that there is such a close relationship between spelling
and pronunciation in Italian, where there isn't in English -- presumably
because English spelling shows traces of how the words evolved.

Music too obviously spreads in both written form and 'performance' form,
sometimes independently. Has widespread travel and modern technology
changed how the two means of spreading interact, both in language and
in music?

> Re Spanish: I was really trying to say not that there are various
> dialectal pronunciations, but that there are local standards, notably
> within Latin America.

So, a 'local standard' would be different from a dialect, how?

> I think I missed the original point about Italian. It may be relevant
> to the "Partit(t)a" issue that the Italian and the local dialects
> prevalent in Austrian Italy had *no* "lengthened" consonants. I
> believe that - at least, I read that - many speakers in the north who
> consider themselves to be primarily Italian-speakers nowadays don't
> use these consonant forms consistently.

I'm fascinated that we can have evidence about the use of lengthened
consonants -- I take it you mean, used (or not) in speech and
corresponding to the written forms which were common to everyone -- in a
particular region. (And (you say 'had') -- at a particular time?)

Is there a good book about all of this?

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE http://classicalplus.gmn.com/artists
tel/fax 01865 553339

.... Don't worry. I forgot your name, too!

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