English questions

[Linguoboy]

Is it "comedy movie" or "movie comedy"?

"comedy film" is what I would be most likely to say.

[Raphael]

Is it "comedy movie" or "movie comedy"?

"comedy film" is what I would be most likely to say.

Thank you!

[Travis B.]

Is it "comedy movie" or "movie comedy"?

"comedy film" is what I would be most likely to say.

I am in agreement with this.

[Raphael]

Why is the apparent standard pronunciation of "Newfoundland" so weird?

[Travis B.]

Why is the apparent standard pronunciation of "Newfoundland" so weird?

Reduction of unstressed vowels due to stress only being on the initial syllable.

[Moose-tache]

That doesn't explain it fully, though. That could yield NEW-fund-lund with two reduced vowels, on the same principle as MAR-uh-lund. But it's NEW-fund-LAND. You will get yelled at by Canadians if you reduce the third syllable, and that's not easy to explain by simple reduction.

[Travis B.]

I have /ˈnufənlənd/ [ˈnʷyfɘ̃ːnɰɘ̃ːnt] and /ˈmɛ̝rələnd/ [ˈmɛ̝ːʁˤəːɰɘ̃ːnt] myself. I have never heard /ˈnufənˌlænd/, and when I googled a moment ago for the pronunciation of Newfoundland I got /ˈnufənlənd/.

[Nortaneous]

I've never heard "Newfoundland" pronounced with secondary stress.

MAR-uh-lund

This sounds wrong to me - I have /merɨlɨnd/ with schwi, pronounced approximately [meʴːln̩(d)]. (It probably should be /merɨlənd/.)

[Moose-tache]

If you think the second and third syllables of Newfoundland are both reduced, I would recomment you not travel to Canada. They get mad when you say it that way.

[Moose-tache]

MAR-uh-lund

This sounds wrong to me - I have /merɨlɨnd/ with schwi, pronounced approximately [meʴːln̩(d)]. (It probably should be /merɨlənd/.)

This wasn't meant to be linguistic transcription. It was meant ot show that syllables two and three are reduced, as they are in your reply.

[Travis B.]

MAR-uh-lund

This sounds wrong to me - I have /merɨlɨnd/ with schwi, pronounced approximately [meʴːln̩(d)]. (It probably should be /merɨlənd/.)

My pronunciation is analogous to /merɨlɨnd/, but as I have the weak vowel merger I have no phonemic distinction between "/ə/" and "/ɨ/".

[Linguoboy]

How to say "Newfoundland" like a real Newfie!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da9zslIFj7o

Oddly, neither of the two "incorrect" pronunciations he gives is /ˈn(j)uː.fənd.lənd/.

[Travis B.]

Oddly, neither of the two "incorrect" pronunciations he gives is /ˈn(j)uː.fənd.lənd/.

And I have never, ever heard the "incorrect" pronunciation given with /faʊnd/.

[Raphael]

Oddly, neither of the two "incorrect" pronunciations he gives is /ˈn(j)uː.fənd.lənd/.

And I have never, ever heard the "incorrect" pronunciation given with /faʊnd/.

I haven't heard that one, but until very recently, I would have assumed it was the "right" one, based on the word's components.

[Travis B.]

Oddly, neither of the two "incorrect" pronunciations he gives is /ˈn(j)uː.fənd.lənd/.

And I have never, ever heard the "incorrect" pronunciation given with /faʊnd/.

I haven't heard that one, but until very recently, I would have assumed it was the "right" one, based on the word's components.

The problem with that pronunciation is that it requires moving the stress to the penultimate syllable, when it always has initial primary stress, with the only question then being whether it has secondary stress on the final syllable. The big reason for the common "incorrect" pronunciation most likely is that in most English varieties final -land (e.g. England, Scotland, Ireland, Finland, Iceland, Maryland) is always an unstressed -/lənd/, so to give it a stressed -/lænd/ is breaking with the normal pattern of placename pronunciation in most English varieties.

[Linguoboy]

Oddly, neither of the two "incorrect" pronunciations he gives is /ˈn(j)uː.fənd.lənd/.

And I have never, ever heard the "incorrect" pronunciation given with /faʊnd/.

That's how I said it myself growing up until I finally learned the standard pronunciation in my late teens.

[Travis B.]

This is more an English-learners-of-German question. It seems to me that English-speakers in general have an easier time learning the ach-Laut that the ich-Laut, despite the fact that the ach-Laut is only found in certain English varieties such as Scottish English, and the ich-Laut being found natively as a phone -- but not a phoneme -- in much of NAE at least. (For instance, /h/ before /j/, /i/, and /ɪr/ is pronounced here as [ç], and indeed that is how I personally learned to pronounce the ich-Laut.) Any idea why this is so?

[Raphael]

Any idea why this is so?

The influence of bad fantasy/SF movie/TV conlangs used by evil creatures?

[Richard W]

This is more an English-learners-of-German question. It seems to me that English-speakers in general have an easier time learning the ach-Laut that the ich-Laut, despite the fact that the ach-Laut is only found in certain English varieties such as Scottish English, and the ich-Laut being found natively as a phone -- but not a phoneme -- in much of NAE at least. (For instance, /h/ before /j/, /i/, and /ɪr/ is pronounced here as [ç], and indeed that is how I personally learned to pronounce the ich-Laut.) Any idea why this is so?

Post-vocalically, the ach-laut occurs as a phone in some English dialects, e.g. Liverpudlian. Also, [ç] is easily confused with [ʃ] by an Englishman, but I don't think I've ever mistaken 'Hugh' for 'shoe'.

[Glenn]

I think that may be precisely the fact that ich-Laut can be found as a phone, but not a phoneme, in English, that makes it difficult for English-speakers to distinguish and pronounce, whereas ach-Laut is heard as a distinctively different (and, for most, non-English) sound, and thus one that can be distinguished and learned as such.

In my case, my dialect seems to have /h/ as [ç] before /j/ (at least in rapid speech), but not in the other two cases that you mention (/i/ or /ɪr/), and it has been difficult for me to perceive it in my own speech as an independent phone, as opposed to a cluster of [h] + [j]. On the other hand, the first time I heard an English-speaking (former) student of German pronounce a word-final ich-Laut, I heard it as almost indistinguishable from [ʃ] (similar to what Richard W noted), even though I knew intellectually that it had to be a different sound; this may have been due in part to their pronunciation, but probably even more to the fact that I had not yet learned to perceive [ç] as a distinct phoneme.