Vocalist.org archive


From:  gwyee@r...
gwyee@r...
Date:  Fri Apr 13, 2001  7:04 am
Subject:  Re: [vocalist] Re: THE AH VOWEL AND OPERATIC SINGING


At 10:38 PM 4/12/01 -500, Pablo wrote:
>I've spoken spanish all my life (Born and bred in Ecuador and lived there
till two years ago) and I can tell you there are NO more than 5 vowels in
spanish. The "o" in Historia and Seņor sound *exactly* alike and must be
pronounced that way. "Hay" is an exception, when the Y (greek i, as we call
it)is AFTER a vowel, then there is a diphtong, so basically HAY is "a" + "y"

Okay---I'll take your word for it. However, just to be clear, I was trying
to distinguish the "o" in "no" from the "o" in Senor (Sorry--my computer
won't make the "enya") or the "o" in "no" from the "o" in "historia"; where
the "o" in both "Senor" and "historia" are, indeed, the same to my ear. The
"hay" example (pronounced like "i" in "like", "mike", "bike", etc), even
though a dipthong and not a vowel per se, still requires a vowel-sound
similar to that required in English as noted in the above 3 examples. Isn't
the English vowel "i" also pronounced [a] + [i]?

But I'll concede, as I am not a native speaker. I did start learning
Spanish at age 9, however, and all of my teachers were either from Mexico or
were of Mexican ancestry [except for a longlongago girlfriend's mom who was
from Spain].

GWendel, dT



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