The capital sharp S in now part of the official German orthography

Re:The capital sharp S in now part of the official German or... by thaumasiotes on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @12:29AM (#14693551)

"Rather different" phonemes? There is no room for them to be more similar to each other without coinciding. And they contrast in only a single minimal pair, one element of which is incredibly rare.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The capital sharp S in now part of the official German or... by pavlov on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @10:02AM (#14695923)

Well, ok. I'm not a native English speaker, so I suppose "rather" wasn't the right word. Maybe "notably different"?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The capital sharp S in now part of the official German or... by thaumasiotes on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @04:48PM (#14698186)

"Rather" appears to be a fine word choice for your intended meaning. I'm objecting to your intended meaning (as far as I can perceive it):

- [θ] and [ð] are objectively similar sounds, differing only in voicing.

- The argument is not even very good that /θ/ and /ð/ are different phonemes in English -- they contrast only in the pair of words teeth/teethe, and one of those words is fairly rare. If you, as a foreign speaker, pick the wrong one of those sounds, you have 100% odds of being correctly understood as a "guy with a foreign accent". Even if you get confused between s/z (compare "visible"), you're very likely to be understood, but with θ/ð there is literally no chance of confusion.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The capital sharp S in now part of the official German or... by pavlov on Wednesday July 05, 2017 @03:41AM (#14700550)

Thanks for the reply! I appreciate the clarification.

The variations around "th" is one of the things I remember finding particularly difficult when learning English pronounciation, so my comment came from there.

[ Parent | on HN ]