# Vowel mergers in standard (Parisian) French



## Nino83

Hi guys. 
I read that there's no distinction between [ɛ̃] and [œ̃] (today [æ̃]), [ə] and [ø] and between [ɛ] and [ɛ:]. Some references say that these mergers are completed in Parisian French and among younger native speaker, without delimiting this phenomenon. 

I read on this forum that people from Normandy can't distinguish [ɛ̃] from [œ̃]. 

I would ask you:  
1) how much are these mergers widespread (geographically)? 
2) are new French grammar books taking this phenomenon into account, reducing the French nasal vowels from 4 to 3 and not nasal French vowels from 11 to 10 (because [ɑ] and [ɛ:] are not, generally, taken into consideration in new grammar books)?


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## merquiades

What you say is correct, reportedly typical, widespread but I doubt it's totally universal in Parisian French:  [ɛ̃] and [œ̃] (today [æ̃]).  So _l'un/lin_, _brun/brin_ would rhyme. I personally have a young Parisian friend who doesn't have the merger and she was born and raised there. Outside Paris this merger is much less widespread, however [ɛ̃] pronounced as [æ̃] definitely is.  I don't think I ever hear [ɛ̃].  In areas of the Lorraine you encounter [ɑ̃̃] and [ɔ̃] merging in favor of  [ɑ̃̃] so _tromper_ sounds like _tremper_.  It is considered ignorant by many but regardless of stigma it's there.
On another thread a Parisian just wrote me today that [ɛ] and [ɛ:] have merged there in _mettre/maître_, _fait/faîtes(fête)_. I was surprised as that is certainly not the case here, or in some other areas.
I have never thought about [ə] and [ø] merging before and I'm pondering it...  I have heard Parisians say _mer-deuh_! and _je sais pas quoi dir-euh_ perhaps that is what's meant. But at the same time they also extend the _euh_ to words that don't even end in -e.   Alor-euh, Bon-jour-euh.

Anyway I can assure you these mergers are not universal, not in the east or the west.  They are rather widespread in Paris but I don't believe universal there either.  However, these are very active linguistic processes in motion though, so they may well have spread into Normandy (it's in the same North central area), and some speakers in other regions may have picked up some of these mergers too.


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## myšlenka

Hi,
I don't know much about this topic but from what I was told about [ə] and [ø] in French, the difference is not based on the phonetic realization but on phonological properties. The schwa /ə/ can be realized as [ø] (or perhaps as [œ]) so in that respect it is similar to <eu> in _peur _[pœr] and _chanteuse_ [ʃɑ͂tøz]. The difference is that words that are transcribed with /ə/, means that this vowel can fall away in certain environments (this applies more to Northern French than to Southern French) while the vowel(s) represented by <eu> never falls away.


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## merquiades

Hi.  But if we look at some minimal pairs like de/deux, que/queue, ce/ceux,  the [ø] is more fronted with very rounded lips and articulated with much more force than [ə] which, as you said, is weak and is usually dropped between consonants or at the end of the word.

The only merger I can think of is when some people who speak a certain way, probably from Paris, say things like /mɛr-dø/, /fɛ-rø/, /a-rɛ-tø/.  I don't know perhaps they might say /a-par-tø-mɑ̃̃/ too.  It sounds affected to me.  I can imagine in my head the type of person who talks like this.


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## Nino83

Wiktionnaire says that _je dis_ /ʒə.di/ is (in Parisian French) pronounced as [ʒø.di] (as if it were written _/jeudi/)_ ou [ʒdi] (eliminating the _e caduc_). 

So, merquiades, do you think that it's unlikely that these features, especially the merger between [ɛ̃] and [œ̃] and [ɛ] and [ɛ:], will be included in grammar books of Standard French?


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## merquiades

Nino83 said:


> Wiktionnaire says that _je dis_ /ʒə.di/ is (in Parisian French) pronounced as [ʒø.di] (as if it were written _/jeudi/)_ ou [ʒdi] (eliminating the _e caduc_).
> 
> So, merquiades, do you think that it's unlikely that these features, especially the merger between [ɛ̃] and [œ̃] and [ɛ] and [ɛ:], will be included in grammar books of Standard French?



I suppose I can imagine [ʒø.di] being said by some people.  I have the image of a guy sitting on a sidewalk café in Paris with his girlfriend, smoking a cigarette. He gets up angrily and says /mɛ-ʒø-di-mɛr-dø-kwa]  Open /ɛ/ whenever possible is also a characteristic of Paris, many other areas tend to close "e".

It's already in books, they write that the unmerged forms are traditionally the standard but the merged forms are gaining acceptance. They forget to mention this is coming from Paris. I guess it's the power of this city and the people who live there.  Manuals don't usually talk about mergers/ splits that are happening elsewhere or areas resisting merger even if they are huge.


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## Nino83

Yes. The fact is that the metropolitan area of Paris has as inhabitants as Quebec plus French Belgium  

But in journalism and media are these mergers usual?


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## merquiades

Nino83 said:


> Yes. The fact is that the metropolitan area of Paris has as inhabitants as Quebec plus French Belgium
> 
> But in journalism and media are these mergers usual?



Nothing has shocked me and stood out really, but I'll make a point to listen more closely today.  They have been talking a lot about "lundi de Pâques" and I'm quite sure they don't say "lain-di" on TV.  The "eu" for "e" though is present in some television anchors, as I said even when there is no final -e.  Bonjoureuh!


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## Nino83

Thank you!
Many generations of Italians run the risk of dying of thrist in Paris because of mispronunciation of the sentence _un peu d'eau, s'il vous plaît_.  
And what about [ɛ] and [ɛ:]? Do you hear it more often on TV or is it a "regional" phenomenon (as [ɛ̃] and [œ̃])?


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## merquiades

Nino83 said:


> Thank you!
> Many generations of Italians run the risk of dying of thrist in Paris because of mispronunciation of the sentence _un peu d'eau, s'il vous plaît_.
> And what about [ɛ] and [ɛ:]? Do you hear it more often on TV or is it a "regional" phenomenon (as [ɛ̃] and [œ̃])?



I thought everyone maintained it until a few days ago when someone said the difference was lost in Paris.  I just cannot pronounce _maître_ as _mettre_,_fête_ as _faites_, _forêt_ as _forer_.  It renders circumflex accents irrelevant.


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## Hulalessar

merquiades said:


> I thought everyone maintained it until a few days ago when someone said the difference was lost in Paris.  I just cannot pronounce _maître_ as _mettre_,_fête_ as _faites_, _forêt_ as _forer_.  It renders circumflex accents irrelevant.



French orthography lost it relation to the way words are pronounced long ago. The circumflex must however be preserved because without it the grape harvest will fail.


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## berndf

merquiades said:


> I thought everyone maintained it until a few days ago when someone said the difference was lost in Paris.  I just cannot pronounce _maître_ as _mettre_,_fête_ as _faites_, *forêt as forer*.  It renders circumflex accents irrelevant.


The difference between _forêt _and _forer_ is quality ([ɛ] vs. [e]), not quantity.


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## merquiades

berndf said:


> The difference between _forêt _and _forer_ is quality ([ɛ] vs. [e]), not quantity.



I understood in this case it was not only quality but quantity too.  When the /s/ was eliminated before another consonant it opened the vowel and lengthened it too to compensate the loss.  Maistre > maître, forest > forêt.  

I'm not disputing that nowadays this vowel lengthening is being lost, even completely acceptable.  Compare politicians nowadays with those twenty years ago.  When I listened to Mitterrand videos I heard some very very long vowels.


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## berndf

merquiades said:


> I understood in this case it was not only quality but quantity too. When the /s/ was eliminated before another consonant it opened the vowel and lengthened it too to compensate the loss. Maistre > maître, forest > forêt.
> 
> I'm not disputing that nowadays this vowel lengthening is being lost, even completely acceptable. Compare politicians nowadays with those twenty years ago. When I listened to Mitterrand videos I heard some very very long vowels.


Compensatory lengthening of a preceding vowel when a consonant is elided is indeed a regularly occurring phenomenon in many languages (e.g. the muting of _gh_ in _light_ caused the lengthening of _i_) but it cannot be assumed to have happened with absolute certainty or the lengthening may later have been reversed, e.g. when the final [t] became mute and the [ɛ] became word-final. At any rate, I haven’t seen a dictionary that marks the [ɛ] in _forêt_ as long. And, since quantity differences in French are only phonetic and not phonemic they tend to be less stable than in languages with phonemic vowel length.


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## merquiades

Nino83 said:


> Yes. The fact is that the metropolitan area of Paris has as inhabitants as Quebec plus French Belgium
> 
> But in journalism and media are these mergers usual?



After a night of paying attention to tv shows from Paris I have come to the conclusion that most of the media does still make the difference between [æ̃] and [œ̃].


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## Nino83

Thank you merquiades for the information 
So, it's better to practise pronouncing all the four nasal vowels.


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## merquiades

Nino83 said:


> Thank you merquiades for the information
> So, it's better to practise pronouncing all the four nasal vowels.



Well technically speaking you should if want to sound the most correct. But even if you don't distinguish between all the nasal vowels it will still probably be okay!


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## Nino83

I distinguish between them so I'll keep doing it


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## merquiades

I have been doing my unofficial research on nasal vowels depending on how people pronounce numbers.  So far I have never heard anyone in Lorraine or Champagne pronounce "un, aucun" with another vowel than [œ̃], that goes for even the youngest people, with varying levels of education.  As I suspected you have to look far and wide to find someone say /sɛ̃k/ or /sɛ̃kɑ͂t/.  [æ̃] seems to have generalized.

Now, I spent last week in Paris, France.  The merger between [œ̃] and [æ̃] occurs with some people but not in others.  I couldn't seem to figure out a trend.  It doesn't seem to be affected by age, profession or area. A guide at a history museum clearly pronounced [æ̃] every single time she used the indefinite article.  The young man at the hotel reception actually said /døsɑ̃sɛ̃kɔ̃teæ̃:/, with not only [œ̃] and [æ̃] seeming to merge but also [ɑ͂] and [ɔ̃]. But many other people did distinguish.


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## berndf

one of the more persistent mistakes I make in French is to merge the a- and o-nasels. I recently made the mistake again and the person I spoke to understood  my "temps" as "thon". When we discussed it he (a native Belgian French speaker) insisted the difference mainly as one of pitch: low/falling pitch for the a- and high/rising pitch for the o-nasal. Does that resonate with you? It doesn't with me.


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## Youngfun

How I pronounce French nasal vowels, because that's how I was taught at school:

an [an]
en [an]
in [ɛn]
on [ɔn]
un [ɛn]

Can someone please list the correct pronunciation of all the nasal vowels?


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## Hulalessar

When I started French some 50 years ago we learned by the then innovative audio-visual method. We never got to see how what we were saying was actually written until the end of the week. In the meantime everything was written on the blackboard using the IPA. So far as we were concerned there were only four nasal vowels: /ɑ̃/, /ɛ̃/, /ɔ̃/ and /œ̃/. These four vowels could be found in the phrase "un bon vin blanc". If one pronounced the vowel in "blanc" as the vowel in "bon" what one was saying was "un bon vin blond". My French dictionary (published 1968) confirms that "blanc" and "blond" have distinct vowels. The online version of the Academy's dictionary also indicates distinct pronunciations.

When I had been learning French for three years I spent a month in Valence. I could not help noticing that some of the nasal vowel sounds I heard did not seem to match what I thought they were supposed to be. Indeed, I recall a discussion about how the word "blanc" should be pronounced. When we spent a week on the Presqu'île de Giens I could not help feeling that the locals used no nasal vowels at all.

Clearly there are (were always) regional differences and changes may have taken place over the last 50 years with sounds merging and shifting. What interests me is whether the position has been reached where the pronunciation of standard French can be said to have moved on since the 1960s so that dictionaries ought to be updated.


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## Nino83

Youngfun said:


> an, en *[ɒ̃] (near to [ɔ̃])*
> in *[æ̃] *
> on *[õ]*
> un *[œ̃], [æ̃]  in Paris. *
> 
> Can someone please list the correct pronunciation of all the nasal vowels?





merquiades said:


> with not only [œ̃] and [æ̃] seeming to merge but also [ɑ͂] and [ɔ̃]. But many other people did distinguish.





berndf said:


> one of the more persistent mistakes I make in French is to merge the a- and o-nasels.



Yes. So am I. When listening to a Frenchman who says _Hollande_ it sounds to me like [olɔ̃d]. It seems that the French [ɒ̃] (open back rounded vowel) is becoming similar to [ɔ̃]. 

There is this counterclockwise movement ([ɒ̃] --> [ɔ̃], [ɔ̃] --> [õ], [ɛ̃] --> [æ̃]) in Parisian French.


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## berndf

Hulalessar said:


> My French dictionary (published 1968) confirms that "blanc" and "blond" have distinct vowels. The online version of the Academy's dictionary also indicates distinct pronunciations.


*That *they are distinct is not the question. The question is only *how *they are distinct. The classical definition a-nasal = [ɑ̃] and o-nazal = [ɔ̃] obviously doesn't work any more, except in Quebecois French.


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## merquiades

Hulalessar said:


> When I started French some 50 years ago we learned by the then innovative audio-visual method. We never got to see how what we were saying was actually written until the end of the week. In the meantime everything was written on the blackboard using the IPA. So far as we were concerned there were only four nasal vowels: /ɑ̃/, /ɛ̃/, /ɔ̃/ and /œ̃/. These four vowels could be found in the phrase "un bon vin blanc". If one pronounced the vowel in "blanc" as the vowel in "bon" what one was saying was "un bon vin blond". My French dictionary (published 1968) confirms that "blanc" and "blond" have distinct vowels. The online version of the Academy's dictionary also indicates distinct pronunciations.
> 
> Clearly there are (were always) regional differences and changes may have taken place over the last 50 years with sounds merging and shifting. What interests me is whether the position has been reached where the pronunciation of standard French can be said to have moved on since the 1960s so that dictionaries ought to be updated.



I don't think anything needs to be updated.  It is the standard, and standards are meant to be ideals.  Plus, some people still speak that way.



			
				berndf said:
			
		

> one of the more persistent mistakes I make in French is to merge the a- and o-nasels. I recently made the mistake again and the person I spoke to understood my "temps" as "thon". When we discussed it he (a native Belgian French speaker) insisted the difference mainly as one of pitch: low/falling pitch for the a- and high/rising pitch for the o-nasal. Does that resonate with you? It doesn't with me.


I see it as the vowel in "thon" is pronounced with much more force and with tightly rounded lips.  "Temps" is more lax and relaxed.  There are native French people who confuse the two vowels.  Town folk in Eastern France say "Je me suis trempé" for "Je me suis trompé" (the same who say _bouche_ for _bouge_) and everyone laughs about that.  It seems like some Parisians are doing the opposite and moving "tremper" closer to "tromper".  In different other areas, like in the south/Rhône valley, it seems to me that /ɑ̃/ is being fronted to /ã/.  There is so much variety with this vowel.


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## Hulalessar

berndf said:


> *That *they are distinct is not the question. The question is only *how *they are distinct. The classical definition a-nasal = [ɑ̃] and o-nazal = [ɔ̃] obviously doesn't work any more, except in Quebecois French.



I am not sure it is the case that "blanc" and "blond" are distinguished in all speakers. I think the two can merge so that both are pronounced with [ɔ̃], to the despair of some purists who regret that the distinction is no longer made. This was what the discussion in Valence 50 years ago was about. What I want to know is how many of the members of the Académie Française distinguish between "blanc" and "blond" because the dictionary they publish says that the vowel in "blanc" is [ɑ̃] and in "blond" [ɔ̃].

It may be noted that there are similar developments in English. For example, for my mother (speaking with a non-rhotic accent) "paw" and "poor" were not homophones, but for me they are.


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## Nino83

In contemporary French /ɑ̃/ = [ɒ̃] (with lip rounding) and /ɔ̃/ = [õ], so all depends on the opening. 
http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Annexerononciation/fran%C3%A7ais#Changements_historiques


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## merquiades

Nino83 said:


> In contemporary French /ɑ̃/ = [ɒ̃] (with lip rounding) and /ɔ̃/ = [õ], so all depends on the opening.
> http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Annexerononciation/fran%C3%A7ais#Changements_historiques


 This link considers the new pronunciation of a segment of Parisians to have become the de-facto norm.  It isn't.


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## Nino83

Thank you, merquiades. 
So it's another Paris vs. France thing.


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## berndf

merquiades said:


> This link considers the new pronunciation of a segment of Parisians to have become the de-facto norm. * It isn't.*


In the region I am living in it certainly *is*. Either you pronounce the nasals dialectal in which case_ je pense_ sounds like _je pince_ in standard French or you pronounce it the standard way and then the reference is exactly what Nino wrote, i.e. you differentiate the a- and o-nasals the modern Parisian way.

It might be different in areas with less strong dialects where the difference between standard vs. dialectal is not so clear cut and there might be grey areas.


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> or you pronounce it the standard way and then the reference is exactly what Nino wrote, i.e. you differentiate the a- and o-nasals the modern Parisian way.



In fact I found this classification on this site http://www.galanet.eu/ressource/fichiers/R688/index.php?LgSrc=1&LgCib=2 
The /ɑ̃/ sounds like [ɒ̃]/[ɔ̃] (with lip rounding) and the /ɔ̃/ like [õ] (more closed than [ɒ̃]/[ɔ̃]).


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## merquiades

berndf said:


> In the region I am living in it certainly *is*. Either you pronounce the nasals dialectal in which case_ je pense_ sounds like _je pince_ in standard French or you pronounce it the standard way and then the reference is exactly what Nino wrote, i.e. you differentiate the a- and o-nasals the modern Parisian way.
> 
> It might be different in areas with less strong dialects where the difference between standard vs. dialectal is not so clear cut and there might be grey areas.



The Swiss speakers I have heard on the mooc classes out of Geneva University have a very beautiful French, very close to the traditional sort Hulalessar was describing:  _Dans, Daim, Dent, Dont, D'un_ are clearly distinguished.  I'm actually quite admirative of them. Such elegance you don't find very often in French universities (well, that goes beyond accent too). _Je pense_ doesn't sound like _Je pince_, but neither like _je ponce_.



			
				Nino83 said:
			
		

> In fact I found this classification on this site http://www.galanet.eu/ressource/fich...gSrc=1&LgCib=2
> The /ɑ̃/ sounds like [ɒ̃]/[ɔ̃] (with lip rounding) and the /ɔ̃/ like [õ] (more closed than [ɒ̃]/[ɔ̃]).


 He sounds like he has an accent from the North to me.


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## berndf

merquiades said:


> The Swiss speakers I have heard on the mooc classes out of Geneva University have a very beautiful French, very close to the traditional sort Hulalessar was describing:  _Dans, Daim, Dent, Dont, D'un_ are clearly distinguished.  I'm actually quite admirative of them. Such elegance you don't find very often in French universities (well, that goes beyond accent too). _Je pense_ doesn't sound like _Je pince_, but neither like _je ponce_.


I was speaking of Swiss, not Geneva accent. The Geneva accent is practically dead. Most Genevans speak with an exceptionally neutral French. When you speak with people from Geneva and Lausanne you often can't believe it's the same country and that the two cities are only 50 km apart (Of course, there are also many standard speakers in Lausanne).


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## francisgranada

> The /ɑ̃/ sounds like [ɒ̃]/[ɔ̃] (with lip rounding) and the /ɔ̃/ like [õ] (more closed than [ɒ̃]/[ɔ̃]).


In my mother tongue (Hungarian) there is a clear difference among [ɒ], [a:] and [o] in whatever position, so I do hear "naturally" the difference e. g. between _nous allons_ and _Holland _. This difference may not be clear e.g. for a native Czech or Slovak (etc.)  as the vowel [ɒ] does not exist their languages. 

So my question is
 a) if this is not only an _illusion _(at least in some cases) as one tends to "feel" the difference, i.e. if it is not a certain kind of subconscious "hypercorrection" (e.g. from my part)
b) if the opposite it not possible as well, i.e. those who do not hear the difference, tend to think that both [ɒ̃] and [õ] are pronounced the same way, even if there is a _real_ differenece in the Frech pronounciation
c) if the native French pronounciation (in general, not especially the Parisian or so) is "reliable" enough in the sense that it consequently corresponds to the etymological spelling (a/o), taking in consideration that the  vowel [ɒ] "as such" does not exist in French (except in case of the discussed nasals, of course).


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## merquiades

francisgranada said:


> c) if the native French pronounciation (in general, not especially the Parisian or so) is "reliable" in the sense that it consequently corresponds to the etymological spelling (a/o), as the vowel [ɒ] "as such" does not exist in French (except in case of the discussed nasals, of course).



Yes, nasal vowels are rather reliable
Comparing nasal to oral
an is [ɑ̃] but anne/ane is [an]
en is [ɑ̃] or [æ̃] (at the end of a word) but enne/ène is [ɛn]
ain is [æ̃] but aine is [ɛn]
in is [æ̃] but ine/inne is [in]
on is [ɔ̃] but onne/one is [ɔn]
un is [œ̃], but une/unne is [yn]

So nasal vowels correspond pretty well to oral vowels but not always.  Nasal/oral "i" and "u" are rather different in quality.  Spelling is reliable though.



			
				francisgranada said:
			
		

> taking in consideration that the vowel [ɒ] "as such" does not exist in French (except in case of the discussed nasals, of course)


  Oral [ɑ] (â) exists in some varieties of French but has merged with [a] (a) in others.

Is this your question?


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## francisgranada

merquiades said:


> ... Is this your question?


Yes, thank you for the precise answer. My question was about the nasals, mainly about [ɒ̃] [ɔ̃] [õ]. (The distinction between the pronounciation of nasals and orals is clear to me).


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## merquiades

francisgranada said:


> Yes, thank you for the precise answer. My question was about the nasals, mainly about [ɒ̃] [ɔ̃] [õ]. (The distinction between the nasals and orals is clear to me).



I'm not sure that [ɒ̃] [ɔ̃] [õ] are correct.  Normally we have [ɑ̃] and [ɔ̃].  They are perceived as different by almost everybody as merger is not common.  For the Parisians who have shifted [ɑ̃] towards [ɒ̃], they also simultaneously move [ɔ̃] to [õ] so there is always a clear sense of difference.  They would not have [ɑ] or [ɒ] as oral vowels only [a].  Offhand I cannot think of many adjectives or nouns ending in -an [occitan/occitane], so it might not be common to switch between nasal and oral "a" to make feminine and plural forms. However, both [ɔ] and [o] exist as oral vowels and are in frequent opposition with each other and with [ɔ̃]:  cochon/cochonne, bon/bonne, for example.

Hearing a distinction between [ɒ] and [ɔ], [ɒ̃] and [ɔ̃] is tough. French doesn't have such close lower back rounded vowels.


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## Nino83

francisgranada said:


> so I do hear "naturally" the difference e. g. between _nous allons_ and _Holland _.



Nobody says that there is a merger. 
There are different regional pronunciations so an /ɑ̃/ pronounced by a Parisian could be very similar to an /ɔ̃/ pronounced by a Niçard. 
But in Paris the distinction is between [ɒ̃] and [õ] while in Nice it is between [ɑ̃] and [ɔ̃]. 
The fact is that when an Italian speaker hears the word _Hollande_ from a Parisian, the /ɑ̃/ sound is similar to an /ɔ̃/. 
We must know that there are different pronunciations and get used to them.


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## berndf

merquiades said:


> I'm not sure that [ɒ̃] [ɔ̃] [õ] are correct.  Normally we have [ɑ̃] and [ɔ̃].


We must be living in extremely different environments. I cannot recall ever having heard [ɑ̃] from a French, Swiss or Belgian speaker. I've only ever heard it from Canadians.


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## merquiades

berndf said:


> We must be living in extremely different environments. I cannot recall ever having heard [ɑ̃] from a French, Swiss or Belgian speaker. I've only ever heard it from Canadians.



We must.  I've normally heard only [ɑ̃].  A rounded vowel approaching [ɔ̃] seems an anomaly to me.  I have heard it by a few people but when someone says "cinconte" I'm taken aback.  The Canadian vowel seems fronted to [ã] or sometimes verging on [ɛ̃].
français
La révolution française
penser
pendant un temps
menton
entrée

For me almost everyone here pronounces [ɑ̃] for an-em and [ɔ̃] for on.  Arnaud in "français" does round his "an" vowel towards [ɔ̃]


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## berndf

merquiades said:


> We must.  I've normally heard only [ɑ̃].  A rounded vowel approaching [ɔ̃] seems an anomaly to me.  I have heard by a few people but when someone says "cinconte" I'm taken aback.  The Canadian vowel seems fronted to [ã] or sometimes verging on [ɛ̃].
> français
> La révolution française
> penser
> pendant un temps
> menton
> entrée
> 
> For me almost everyone here pronounces [ɑ̃] for an-em and [ɔ̃] for on.  Arnaud in "français" does round his "an" vowel towards [ɔ̃]


Sorry, I hear them all rounded, i.e. [ɒ̃] not [ɑ̃] but not [ɔ̃]. That is still something else. Rounding of [ɑ̃] doesn't automatically make it [ɔ̃].


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## Nino83

Calador06 pronounces [fʁɒ̃se] too. 
Plachenian and Prodo pronounce (_la revolution française_) as [fʁɒ̃sez] too. 
Except johncraven (Canadian) _penser_ (with an [ɑ̃]), fabre (Occitan) _menton _(with an [ẽ]), I hear only [ɒ̃] for _an, en_​.


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## merquiades

What you all are hearing as [ɒ̃] I hear as standard [ɑ̃] and what you are hearing as [ɑ̃] in Canadian I hear as [ã].  [ɒ̃] has tensed rounded lips and is higher, [ɑ̃] is wide open back and unrounded.  The Canadian one is further to the front closer to a nasalized [a] in "la".
See if you still hear [ɒ̃] here and here


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## berndf

merquiades said:


> [ɒ̃] .. is higher


No, it's not, [ɔ̃] is higher.


merquiades said:


> , [ɑ̃] is wide open back


So is [ɒ̃]. This is the definition of the symbol ɒ which differs from ɑ only by rounding for me the rounding is very clear.


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## Nino83

Hi berndf, maybe merquiades is used to the British English [ɒ], which is higher than normal [ɒ]. 



> _Somewhat raised. Younger RP speakers may pronounce a closer vowel [ɔ]._


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_back_rounded_vowel#Occurrence 

It is between [ɒ] and [ɔ] in traditional RP but nowdays is closer to [ɔ] (while RP traditional /ɔː/ is, de facto, raised to [o:]). 
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/RP_English_monophthongs_chart.svg 

I agree with berndf. In those samples the /ɑ̃/ is a rounded vowel ([ɒ]). 




merquiades said:


> See if you still hear [ɒ̃] here and here



In the second link I hear [ɒ̃] while in the first one the vowel is less rounded, [ɑ̃], but in both links I hear [õ]  (and not [ɔ̃]). 
Anyway the /ɑ̃/ is more rounded than /a/ (also in the first page). 
I hear clearly an [ɒ̃] in _vraiment, Constantine _(second link, second video).


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## jmx

I heard once a theory about nasal vowels that might be relevant for this thread:

Because some air must escape through the nose, nasal vowels are in general less perceptible (less loud) than the oral ones. On the other hand, open/low vowels are in general more perceptible (louder) than closed/high ones. For this reason, speakers tend to pronounce nasal vowels lower and lower (more and more open), to compensate unconsciously for low audibility. If all nasal vowels get lower and lower, they get closer and closer to [ã] (a low, central, nasal vowel), and in the process phoneme mergers become inevitable.


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