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Loiks wrote:Omniglot is not correct about long vowels and consonants: they are never written with three letters. Three letters can appear only in combined words or if suffix is added: if vowels: maa-ala, if consonants: kukkki (-gi/-ki).
Secondly, the letter z is [tsett] not [see]. Only used in Greek loanwords like zoo- (-loogia, -loog, -fiil etc). It is also used for some Võro family names like Zirk [tsirk].
Loiks wrote:I guess it's a little bit a matter of cultural heritage: [zee] is Soviet-Russian variant and [tsett] Baltic German. Estonians are almost inable to pronounce [z], so it's either [s] or [ts]. [tsee] (c) and [see] (z) would sound very similar, so [tsett] is better to distinguish.
Loiks wrote:I guess it's a little bit a matter of cultural heritage: [zee] is Soviet-Russian variant and [tsett] Baltic German. Estonians are almost inable to pronounce [z], so it's either [s] or [ts]. [tsee] (c) and [see] (z) would sound very similar, so [tsett] is better to distinguish.
hashi wrote:Loiks wrote:I guess it's a little bit a matter of cultural heritage: [zee] is Soviet-Russian variant and [tsett] Baltic German. Estonians are almost inable to pronounce [z], so it's either [s] or [ts]. [tsee] (c) and [see] (z) would sound very similar, so [tsett] is better to distinguish.
Interesting. Are there many soviet Russians still in Estonia who can differentiate /s/ and /z/?
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