Re: The Name of the U
Rob Zook 
Sun, 11 Jan 1998 13:45:57 -0600

At 11:46 AM 1/11/98 -0600, Saul Epstein wrote:
>From: Rob Zook <rzook*informix,com>
>Date: Saturday, January 10, 1998 3:54 PM
>
>> Also, most languages have a naming scheme for _all_
>> the letters, including the vowels.
>
>True. Most of them use the pronunciation of the vowel in isolation as
>its name. Including English.
>
>> For example, in English, when I say 
>> the letter [u] refering to it as a letter,  I say [yoo.]. It starts
>> with a palatal voiced approximate, then the vowel, and ends with an
>> unvoiced  glottal stop.
>
>That's correct except for the glottal stop. The standard
>pronunciation of <u> ends with a [w].

Hmmm..,I guess I don't pronounce that one in the standard way.

>> The same holds true with all the other vowels: [eyii.],
>> [ii.], [ayii.], [oo.], [yoo.].
>
>No, it doesn't. They are [ey], [iy], [ay], [ow], and [yuw], all the
>most proper pronunciations of the "long" forms which the letters
>represent. A as in "pay," E as in "penal," I as in "pie," O as in
>"pony," and U as in "punitive," and "amputate," and "miniscule," and
>"cute," and "refute," and -- if you're really, really British --
>"tune," and "dune," and even "Kuwait."

Now, keep in mind I was using your version of the Vulcan phonetic
symbols (and phonemic too at this point). Which means I did goof
a little, I should have said [yuu] instead of [yoo]. However, all
the "long vowels" one actually pronounces as dipthongs (except for
long E, that is). Off the top of my head in that message I was
presenting that glide between two vowels as [y]. Don't ask me
why, it just sounded that way.

If we harken back to your ASCII IPA vowel symbols for a moment:
i in beat
I in bit
ei in bait
E in bet
ae in bat
A -- a Kennedy says "bark"
* in butt
u in boot
U in butcher
ou in boat
) in bought
a in botch

Then long A one says and pronounces as Ei, long E as i, long I
as Ai, long O as ou, and long U as yu. They are as much "names"
for the Vowels as pronounciations of the "long" forms.

Now, I'll by the difference between the cessation of the vowel, and a 
plosive, so again while it's not neccessary to have names for the
vowels then on that bases. Vulcan would be an extreme minority, for
not having them. Since I have yet to encounter a language that does
not have vowel names.

Rob Z.
--------------------------------------------------------
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
-- Groucho Marx