Ranking : The language with more vowels

[NulNuk]

Spanish: ca. 5
a, e, i, o, u
written a, e, i/y, o, u

two things: "i" and "y" are not the same vowel ,"y" sounds more like "LL"
not like "i" ,when its alone ,"y" sounds like an "i" (maybe a bit stronger),
but inside a word ,is a diferent vowel .
and you forgot "LL" ,wich is allso a vowel in Spanish ,and in most of the
Castillian dialects (I think only in Rio-Platence ,"LL" and "Y" are not vowels
but consonants ,exept for "y" if its standing alone .).

[Fenek]

Numbers of phonemes in Slavic languages according to Istoričeskaja tipologija slavjanskih jazykov (Kiev, 1986):

Belarussian - 40: 34 consonants, 6 vowels
Bulgarian - 45: 39 consonants, 6 vowels
Czech - 35: 25 consonants, 10 vowels
Macedonian - 31: 26 consonants, 5 vowels
Polish - 44: 36 consonants, 8 vowels
Russian - 41: 35 consonants, 6 vowels
Serbocroatian - 35: 25 consonants, 10 vowels
Slovak - 41: 27 consonants, 14 vowels
Slovene - 35: 22 consonants, 13 vowels
Upper Sorbian - 39: 32 consonants, 7 vowels
Ukrainian - 47: 41 consonants, 6 vowels

[Psi-Lord]

Thi, does EN in assento sound like EN in quente for you? What about you guys (the other Portuguese speakers here)?

To me, assento is quite different from quente. The latter follows the nasalization proccess explained, but the former does not. The e is not nasalized (or rather, it is just slightly nasalized because of the following nasal consonant, but no more than happens in similar cases in other languages). And this happens also with similar words, such as momento.

Ah, thanks, ekalin — I feel them as quite different myself, but I thought it was just me. I guess I can imagine Paulistanos pronouncing them the same way, but most people I know probably wouldn't.

And what about "muito", where the diphtongue (or part thereof) is nasalized, even without an "n"?

From Latin mihi we had Low Latin mī which, following the explicative ad, was kept as dative pronoun in Sursilvan, Catalan, Spanish and Portuguese. The Portuguese form shows nasal assimilation just like that which is present in multu > muito, which is pronounced nasally [muĩntu].

Source: Heinrich Lausberg's Romanische Sprachwissenschaft

Thread on nasalisation development in Portuguese at http://www.unilang3.org/main/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1147

[Psi-Lord]

Sursilvan?

What's that?

It's Silvah's language.

Seriously though, it took me sometime to find out what exactly it was when I first heard of it. Though the name sounds a bit 'exotic', it's just a dialect of Romansch. Here's the (little) info about it from Ethnologue:

ROMANSCH: a language of Switzerland

SIL code: RHE
ISO 639-1: rm
ISO 639-2: roh

Population 40,000 or 0.6% of the population (1990 census).

Region Borders of Switzerland, Austria, Italy; Graubünden Canton, Grisons valley of Surselva, valley of Voderrhein; Engadin and Val Mustair, southeast Switzerland.

Alternate names RHETO-ROMANCE, RHAETO-ROMANCE, ROMANSH, ROMANCHE

Dialects LOWER ENGADINE (PUTER-LOWER ENGADINE, GRISONS), UPPER ENGADINE (VALLADER-UPPER ENGADINE), SURSILVAN (SURSELVA, SUTSILVAN-HINTERRHEIN), SURSILVAN-OBERLAND, SURMIRAN-ALBULA.

Classification Indo-European, Italic, Romance, Italo-Western, Western, Gallo-Iberian, Gallo-Romance, Gallo-Rhaetian, Rhaetian.

Comments Friulian, Ladin, and Romansch are separate languages (R. A. Hall, Jr., personal communication 1978). 78% lexical similarity with Italian and French, 76% with Catalan, 74% with Spanish, Sardinian, and Portuguese, 72% with Romanian. Speakers are bilingual. Standard German is the language of instruction in school. An official written language is in common use now, called Grischuna. Official language. All dialects taught in school. Newspapers. Bible 1679-1953.

[elgrande]

Spanish: ca. 5
a, e, i, o, u
written a, e, i/y, o, u

two things: "i" and "y" are not the same vowel ,"y" sounds more like "LL"
not like "i" ,when its alone ,"y" sounds like an "i" (maybe a bit stronger),
but inside a word ,is a diferent vowel .
and you forgot "LL" ,wich is allso a vowel in Spanish ,and in most of the
Castillian dialects (I think only in Rio-Platence ,"LL" and "Y" are not vowels
but consonants ,exept for "y" if its standing alone .).

I think Nulnuk was considering "y" in the word "and" and in words with diphthongs like "soy/sois", where there is indeed no difference between written "i" and "y", not the sound in "yerba" for instance. If you consider the /j/ phoneme in "yerba" as a vowel(, which IMHO doesn't make much sense), you'd have to add those /j/ vowels to German and English as well.

[elgrande]

Pittsboy, I've never said that diphthongs don't consist of a nucleus and an off/on-glide. Neither have I ever said that German vowels are one sound.
I don't know why are you repeatedly telling me about this. A diphthong can't be one sound, that's why it's called a diphthong.

But one sound is not necessarily one phoneme nor does one sound always represent one phoneme. That's what I'm talking about, nothing else.

[Languagefetishist]

Portuguese has 12 vowels
A
Á
E
É
I
O
Ó
U
 (SCHWA)

yes. Portuguese has 9 vowels. and Portugese Am/An isn't anything like Â. Plus the nasalization, we have 14 vowels !!!! And Portuguese nasal A is A NASALIZED SCHWA, not NASALIZED A-SYMBOL-IN-IPA

[Pittsboy]

Portuguese has 12 vowels
A
Á
E
É
I
O
Ó
U
 (SCHWA)

yes. Portuguese has 9 vowels. and Portugese Am/An isn't anything like Â. Plus the nasalization, we have 14 vowels !!!! And Portuguese nasal A is A NASALIZED SCHWA, not NASALIZED A-SYMBOL-IN-IPA

Well, I will not even bother to comment this tsk tsk tsk

[Luís]

Well, I will not even bother to comment this tsk tsk tsk

You just did so.

[Languagefetishist]

Portuguese has 12 vowels
A
Á
E
É
I
O
Ó
U
 (SCHWA)

yes. Portuguese has 9 vowels. and Portugese Am/An isn't anything like Â. Plus the nasalization, we have 14 vowels !!!! And Portuguese nasal A is A NASALIZED SCHWA, not NASALIZED A-SYMBOL-IN-IPA

Well, I will not even bother to comment this tsk tsk tsk

Why not? Portuguese A before m/n/nh really sounds like a schwa and Am/An really sounds like a nasalized schwa.
Portuguese pronunciation isn't all that crappy as most of people think it is.

[Pittsboy]

Why not? Portuguese A before m/n/nh really sounds like a schwa and Am/An really sounds like a nasalized schwa.
Portuguese pronunciation isn't all that crappy as most of people think it is.

(Brazilian) Portuguese is my native language... schwas only exist in European Portuguese, and obvioulsy they have a different phonemic system up there... Brazilian Portuguese has only oral vowels, and nasalized vowels appear in phonetic contexts only...

[Languagefetishist]

Why not? Portuguese A before m/n/nh really sounds like a schwa and Am/An really sounds like a nasalized schwa.
Portuguese pronunciation isn't all that crappy as most of people think it is.

(Brazilian) Portuguese is my native language... schwas only exist in European Portuguese, and obvioulsy they have a different phonemic system up there... Brazilian Portuguese has only oral vowels, and nasalized vowels appear in phonetic contexts only...

No friend. Portuguese has nasal vowels and diphthongs
ão
õe
ãe
õu
ui
em = ei~
am
im
um
om

You know **** about Portuguese pronunciation ... I doubt you are a Portuguese speaker ... and by the way, ~ is the accent of nasalization, officially from IPA.... why don't you simply study Portuguese pronunciation further?

[Languagefetishist]

Why not? Portuguese A before m/n/nh really sounds like a schwa and Am/An really sounds like a nasalized schwa.
Portuguese pronunciation isn't all that crappy as most of people think it is.

(Brazilian) Portuguese is my native language... schwas only exist in European Portuguese, and obvioulsy they have a different phonemic system up there... Brazilian Portuguese has only oral vowels, and nasalized vowels appear in phonetic contexts only...

and there are no ~schwas~

schwa is uncountable ... since it comes from German
and you offended Brazil ... maybe you are not a native portuguese speaker and you are jealous of not being able to pronounce nasal vowels and diphthongs

[Pittsboy]

[Languagefetishist]

:roll:

since if it is all you have to say then you have no right to say that Brazilian Portuguese doesn't use nazalisation.. it does and also has schwa... what do you think A in Cama is??? a consonant? lol

[Pittsboy]

First of all:

1) Identify yourself;
2) You are clearly someone trying to create confusion here;
3) I will not even spend my time on this subject, since you can read two threads on nasalization and vowels...
4) If you have a little IQ you will understand what other people wrote in previous posts;
5) I will ask someone to either check your IP and to lock this thread.

Thank you

[NulNuk]

Pittsboy

:0}

Joined: 28 Jun 2002
Posts: 351
Location: São Paulo - The great NulKie Empire

upe ,NulNuk conquered São Paulo ,now Pittsboy native language is NulKie :0P

[Pittsboy]

Pittsboy

:0}

Joined: 28 Jun 2002
Posts: 351
Location: São Paulo - The great NulKie Empire

upe ,NulNuk conquered São Paulo ,now Pittsboy native language is NulKie :0P

NulNulk you need to impose your language then LOL

[Piroska]

Dear Pittsboy, you have astoundingly good English if it is not your first language, but I thought I would offer you some pointers before I ask *you* something:

Well, I will not even bother to comment this tsk tsk tsk

'To comment' is not a transitive verb (I hope this is the correct terminology); one must say, "I will not even bother to comment *on* this."

Also, regarding the above post, you need a "second of all", or an "also" if you use "first of all", and "either" needs "or" (not "and")

Now my turn (Pode dizer-me?): Where is Portuguese spoken in Europe and by whom? In my ignorance I thought Portuguese was only spoken in Brazil. Did it develop originally into Portuguese from Spanish in Europe? Or more directly from Latin?

Muito obrigado. (Hee hee.. I found my grandma's Portuguese for travellers!)

Penny

(Bilingual posting action: Woher kommt die portugiesische Sprache? Wo in Europa ist sie gesprochen: Ich dachte, sie wird nur in Brasilien gesprochen. Hat sie sich ursprünglich in Europa entwickelt, und von Spanisch oder eben von Latein her?)

[NulNuk]

why do I feel the smel of old "friend" on the last joining members???
I dont want to acuse ,but I would look for marks signature on them :0{