![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
allison_isI was transcribing my SCA name, and ei in Dutch is pronounced differently than ei in German, despite Dutch being a Germanic language.
In German"ei" represents the [aɪ] sound. In Dutch, "ei" is pronounced [ɛɪ].
Vowels are a bitch. Actually these are diphthongs (I hate that word. . . it used to be pronounced like it looks, but because of. . . assimilation, it changed. Assimilation is when a sound becomes more like its neighbor, and it is easier to say because of the locations of the consonants and vowels in the mouth)
[aɪ] is like time.
[ɛɪ] is like make.
I am still trying to figure out how to make sense of it all. A native Dutch speaker recorded it for me a long time ago, and it sounded like Ah-let. I can't make fancy ass phonetic symbols, but it's more like Ah-layt.
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm not. You can't argue with phonetic symbols.
In German"ei" represents the [aɪ] sound. In Dutch, "ei" is pronounced [ɛɪ].
Vowels are a bitch. Actually these are diphthongs (I hate that word. . . it used to be pronounced like it looks, but because of. . . assimilation, it changed. Assimilation is when a sound becomes more like its neighbor, and it is easier to say because of the locations of the consonants and vowels in the mouth)
[aɪ] is like time.
[ɛɪ] is like make.
I am still trying to figure out how to make sense of it all. A native Dutch speaker recorded it for me a long time ago, and it sounded like Ah-let. I can't make fancy ass phonetic symbols, but it's more like Ah-layt.
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm not. You can't argue with phonetic symbols.
