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> The vast majority of Finns reading kirjakieli aloud are going to subject it to many of the puhekieli sound changes Then I'll be surprised. After all, that do

> The vast majority of Finns reading kirjakieli aloud are going to subject it to many of the puhekieli sound changes Then I'll be surprised. After all, that doesn't match the general understanding of Finnish having very shallow orthography (see e.g. the Wikipedia article). I'd be interested if you know research on this. But even making all the sound changes does not turn the standard written language into the colloquial language, which entails some vocabulary and grammar changes as well. Let me reformulate the experiment: Someone reads a text aloud as it's written and you ask if people still understood, if something was said incorrectly or even if they notised anything weird. It shouldn't be weird in any way, as you hear non-colloquial language all the time on TV etc. > if they speak a regional dialect with significant phonetic changes, they will apply those sounds Then I'll be very surprised. To begin with, wouldn't that in most cases go totally against the phoneme-grapheme correspondence of Finnish? Secondly, when you intend something to be read aloud in a non-neutral way (colloquially or in a dialect), you write it that way to begin with. Why would the reader translate neutral language to non-neutral language and how would the reader know which dialect to use? Finally, as the reader would be essentially translating the text from the standard language to the dialect, it would seem unnecessarily demanding for an otherwise simple task. > The languages I gave as examples above, are typical examples of diglossia. Finnish as a typical example of diglossia? The differences between the two registers are not that big to begin with, and it's a continuum with e.g. the languages spoken on TV falling mostly in some unspecific region in the middle. I do understand that the prevalence of the two extremes can be problematic to learners of Finnish as a second language, because in a way you have to learn two dialects at the same time even though one is mainly written and the other is mainly spoken, and you never know which exact spot on the continuum is used by someone.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago
I was trained in linguistics in Finland, so what I posted is based on my own experience with the language and how it is used by Finnish society, but I admit to not knowing particular studies to cite, because my own research focuses on some other languages. Now, native Finnish speakers here are, of course in a position to speak more precisely on many matters, but I would be surprised if views were much different than my native-Finnish-speaking colleagues’. It can only be expected that someone reading a fossilized written standard aloud is going to apply various sound changes. When reading the written standard aloud with the standard pronunciation is seen as someone only newsreaders or solemn speech-givers do, then it will seem very stilted and pedantic to do so if you’re just an ordinary person. Now, the investigator could try to nudge the person into using standard pronunciation, but I would expect this to provoke some offense, because it might be suggesting that the person’s dialect or idiolect is wrong. Moreover, there seems to be a widespread conception in Finland that actually sticking to the written standard in everyday writing, or pronouncing it aloud strictly according to the standard, is a marker of autism. Subconsciously, people try to show that they are more loosened up. > Finnish as a typical example of diglossia? The differences between the two registers are not that big to begin with Yes, I have often seen Finland described as an example of diglossia. The differences between the two registers are so great that foreign learners typically get 1.5 years of kirjakieli, and then they have to nearly start all over again with puhekieli using dedicated learning material. But it is not only foreigners: I have worked with Finns born abroad who learned only puhekieli from their parents, and upon moving to Finland and needing to be able to find jobs, they had to spend some time learning kirjakieli from a specialized programme, and by their own admission they found many features of it baffling at first. > Let me reformulate the experiment Your reformulated experiment only supports my claim of diglossia. Of course someone listening to a standard-language text read aloud will understand it and won’t find it weird. But it’s the same case for reading fusha aloud to a group of speakers of an Arabic dialect.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago

I was trained in linguistics in Finland, so what I posted is based on my own experience with the language and how it is used by Finnish society, but I admit to not knowing particular studies to cite, because my own research focuses on some other languages. Now, native Finnish speakers here are, of course in a position to speak more precisely on many matters, but I would be surprised if views were much different than my native-Finnish-speaking colleagues’. It can only be expected that someone reading a fossilized written standard aloud is going to apply various sound changes. When reading the written standard aloud with the standard pronunciation is seen as someone only newsreaders or solemn speech-givers do, then it will seem very stilted and pedantic to do so if you’re just an ordinary person. Now, the investigator could try to nudge the person into using standard pronunciation, but I would expect this to provoke some offense, because it might be suggesting that the person’s dialect or idiolect is wrong. Moreover, there seems to be a widespread conception in Finland that actually sticking to the written standard in everyday writing, or pronouncing it aloud strictly according to the standard, is a marker of autism. Subconsciously, people try to show that they are more loosened up. > Finnish as a typical example of diglossia? The differences between the two registers are not that big to begin with Yes, I have often seen Finland described as an example of diglossia. The differences between the two registers are so great that foreign learners typically get 1.5 years of kirjakieli, and then they have to nearly start all over again with puhekieli using dedicated learning material. But it is not only foreigners: I have worked with Finns born abroad who learned only puhekieli from their parents, and upon moving to Finland and needing to be able to find jobs, they had to spend some time learning kirjakieli from a specialized programme, and by their own admission they found many features of it baffling at first. > Let me reformulate the experiment Your reformulated experiment only supports my claim of diglossia. Of course someone listening to a standard-language text read aloud will understand it and won’t find it weird. But it’s the same case for reading fusha aloud to a group of speakers of an Arabic dialect.