22628: Hess: Re: 22614: DeGraff: Re: 22612: Vishnusurf: Re: 22609: DeGraff on Ms. Grey's... (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dougrhess2@aol.com

DeGraff:

Good English-speaking learners of Haitian Creole---such learners  seem
so rare on this list---would try to stop confusing their  English-like
pronunciation of Haitian Creole with the actual pronunciation  of
Haitian Creole by native Haitian speakers like myself and millions  of
other Haitians.

====

I wonder if the confusion for non-native speakers who primarily used  English
when growing up lies in part with the use of "an" to represent a sound.
Visually, this makes one think "an" as in the English word man not the "an"  sound
as in the Creole word manbo. The second problem is that "b" and "m" sound
are not so far apart. Just as I often get deliveries to my apartment that read
"Heff" instead of "Hess" when I order over the phone (this only happens on the
 East Cost, never in the midwest, where people have more Hesses around so to
have  interacted with the name), I think the M and B sounds get confused.
Thus, the  visual desire for that "n" to be something other than a HC "an" and the
aural  confusion of B and M lead one to slide into mambo. Anyway, I'm hunger
so I'm off  to the store to buy some mamba, I mean manba.