Boghos Posted October 9, 2004 Report Share Posted October 9, 2004 I have noticed that some Armenians say "Armenian", "Armenia" in a number of languages replacing the "eni" for the equivalent "ñ" in Spanish or "gni" in Italian, probably less well known is the "nh" sound in Portuguese. At first I thought this was just a mstake of Brazilahay but over time i heard this even in English. Does this have to have with Armenian, Turkish or maybe Arabic ? I haven´t yet found an exlanation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nairi Posted October 9, 2004 Report Share Posted October 9, 2004 You mean nasalized? As in pronounced "in/with the nose"? That's not surprising. /m/ is a nasal sound and so is /n/. -meni- is nasalized because of the /m/ and /n/. Dealing with phonetics here again, but that's the way it is.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stormig Posted October 10, 2004 Report Share Posted October 10, 2004 You mean it sounds like Armñan? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boghos Posted October 10, 2004 Author Report Share Posted October 10, 2004 You mean it sounds like Armñan? style_images/master/snapback.png Exactly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nairi Posted October 10, 2004 Report Share Posted October 10, 2004 What do you mean? Is there no vowel between m and ñ? Are you sure there's not at least a /@/? I've mostly heard Armenian in America pronounced as /armiñy@n/, in England as /ahmiñy@n/. With the stress on the second syllable /min/. I don't know how Portugese works, so I can't comment on that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boghos Posted October 10, 2004 Author Report Share Posted October 10, 2004 What do you mean? Is there no vowel between m and ñ? Are you sure there's not at least a /@/? I've mostly heard Armenian in America pronounced as /armiñy@n/, in England as /ahmiñy@n/. With the stress on the second syllable /min/. I don't know how Portugese works, so I can't comment on that. style_images/master/snapback.png The difference is that there is no "y", it is pronounced /armiñ@n/. Great majority of the older generation, post-AG immigrants, say it this way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nairi Posted October 10, 2004 Report Share Posted October 10, 2004 Okay, that's a nuance. My follow-up question is: do you feel that their /n/ is more nasalized than the way native English-speaking people pronounce it? What I mean is, when I try to say /armiñ@n/ it sounds more "nasalized" (like a very heavy New York accent), than when I hear native speakers of English say it. Am I right in assuming that post-AG diasporans "exaggerate" the nasalization? Is that what you mean? More questions to come after you answer this By the way, I find this observation fascinating, as usual Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nairi Posted October 10, 2004 Report Share Posted October 10, 2004 Okay, I think I'm getting it. Correct me if I'm wrong (and bear with me): - /n/ is produced with the "tip" or "blade" of the tongue (the blade is just above the tip) against the alveolar ridge (right behind the teeth). - /ñ/ is produced with the body (mid-section) of the tongue against the palate (the palate is right after the alveolar ridge). The effect is this: - /minya/ (in /arminya/) sounds low-pitched. - /miña/ sounds high-pitched. One way to explain this phenomenon is false hearing. Post-AG Armenians learning English as a second language misheard what was being pronounced. At the same time, they transferred what they thought was closest in their language into English. Another explanation is the /i/. /i/ is pronounced at the very front of the mouth. Not only that, it's high-pitched. What that means is that your tongue is at the highest point at the front. Say /i/ and then /a/ and notice the difference in your tongue position. With /a/ it's all the way down, whereas with /i/ it's all the way up. Next, is /@/. /@/ is pronounced in the middle of your mouth. Compare with /o/, which is clearly pronounced at the back of your mouth. With nuances of course, but this is the way we classify vowels in phonology. Maybe you already see the answer to your question. We tend to assimilate sounds that are close to each other. It's so much easier to say /izi/ than /izo/. This may sound strange to you now, but over time, we tend to bring vowels and consonants closer and closer to each other, for simple sake of simplicity. Does this make sense? Now, why /ñ/ and not /n/? Well /ñ/ is high-pitched like /i/ and pronounced in the middle of the mouth like /@/. So how come native speakers of English don't do this? Who knows what they might do in the future? Maybe these Armenians are simply ahead of time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boghos Posted October 11, 2004 Author Report Share Posted October 11, 2004 This is an interesting thesis. It makes sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twilight Bark Posted October 11, 2004 Report Share Posted October 11, 2004 It's so much easier to say /izi/ than /izo/. This may sound strange to you now, but over time, we tend to bring vowels and consonants closer and closer to each other, for simple sake of simplicity. Does this make sense? That sounds like "vowel harmony". I didn't think that it was a universal tendency, or an evolutionary target. If so, that makes Turkish one of the most evolved languages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nairi Posted October 11, 2004 Report Share Posted October 11, 2004 That sounds like "vowel harmony". style_images/master/snapback.png It's exactly that. The same sort of process (fronting) happened in Old English. Turkish is in fact often used as a primary example for this phenomenon. Whether it makes a language more evolved or not is a personal opinion. But it is more simplified, although that doesn't necessarily make Turkish an easy language to learn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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