LINGUIST List 13.476

Wed Feb 20 2002

Qs: Transcription Equipment, Final Vowel/Indo-Aryan

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>



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  • Charley Rowe, transcription equipment
  • MPI EVA Jakarta Field Station, Final vowels in Indo-Aryan

    Message 1: transcription equipment

     Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 15:34:45 -0000
    From: Charley Rowe <Charley.Rowenewcastle.ac.uk>
    Subject: transcription equipment


    Hello Linguists,

    We have corpora consisting of good-quality oral recordings on standard audio cassette, along with identical versions on cd.

    In order to transcribe the material efficiently, we are looking for footpedals to control the rewind, ff, stop, and play functions. The only problem so far is that "conventional" transcribers--typically used in the medical secretarial environment--are not intended for fine analysis. Can you recommend either footpedals that connect with the computer and work with cd rom, or a professional-linguist quality cassette transcriber with footpedals?

    Many thanks, and I will summarize to the list.

    Charley Rowe

    Message 2: Final vowels in Indo-Aryan

     Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 13:18:39 +0700
    From: MPI EVA Jakarta Field Station <mpgcbn.net.id>
    Subject: Final vowels in Indo-Aryan


    Dear fellow linguists,

    I am working on a paper about the change of final /a/ to schwa-like vowels in some Austronesian languages. Apparently this is an areal feature that originated in the Indianized Javanese kingdom of Majapahit. Since the change appears to lack phonetic motivation, I have been intrigued by the possibility that it may have been triggered by influence from Indic. I seem to recall that the change of short /a/ to a schwa-like vowel is common in Indic languages, and that final short vowels can get weakened or even deleted. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to obtain any information about these phenomena here in Indonesia.

    If anyone has any information regarding the weakening of short vowels (especially /a/, and especially in final position) in Indo-Aryan languages, I would greatly appreciate hearing from you. Please reply to:

    Sincerely,

    Uri Tadmor