PRONOUNCING NASAL VOWEL "Ę" IN FINAL POSITION?

ATT: NATIVE SPEAKERS!
Many contend that the nasal vowel "ę" is no longer pronounced in final position (się, cię, wodę, rosę). But in the speech of some, especial the formal or theatrical speech of politcians, homilists, actors, etc. a slight nasality may be dertected.

Is that affected or hypercorrect speech or, conversely, is the total absence of nasality tantamount to substandard pronuncitation? What is the verdict as of today's date in AD 2008?

Languages change. It's normal. It can be a bit sad when a distinctive sound stops being used in any language.


I had noticed that it is either absent or fully pronounced. If someone is speaking normally, -ę will be -e, but in careful speech, it will be pronounced as -ę rather than some half-hearted attempt somewhere between the two. I heard it today when someone was trying to teach me a new word (which I have since forgotten).


It's not really for me to pass judgment, but I'd prefer it to stay.

Yes


No

There should be a thread, here on PF, explaining the correct pronunciation of both nasal vowels in Polish.

I have read stuff here before about where to and where not to pronounce the nasal vowels. I believe that in the final position in a word, they are not pronounced, although if someone is explaining a word, as one of my colleagues was today, it can be pronounced nasally so that the correct spelling can be known.

Unfortunatelly, Polonius3 is participating in a competition for a biggest numbers of new threads with capital letters in the title of the thread, so browsing older posts is no option for him.

He rarely even answers his initial "pseudo-questions".

The "ą" IS pronounced in final position, only the "ą" is usually nasally silent.

IME there's final -ę and there's final -ę

I've noticed that some people do have some degree of nasality some times. This isn't the 'full' nasal pronunciation (actually a nasalized -eu not heard much besides się when stressed) but -e with some nasality (almost like French final -in).

One thing I've read (by a very distinguished polonist) is that pronouncing the full -ę all the time sounds stilted and hypercorrect while avoiding all final -ę nasal sounds is too informal. The ideal pronunciation is to nasalize some -ę's and not others. This writer didn't indicate exactly which -ę's should receive nasalization, the suggestion seemed to be that it was up to the speaker.

One thing I've kind of noticed is that first person -ę is maybe more likely to be nasalized when it would otherwise be identical with the third person, so piszę and chcę are more likely to receive nasalization than muszę or kupię.

CORRECTION (slip of the finger) -- THE ABOVE CONTRIBUTION SHOULD HAVE READ:
The "ą" IS pronounced in final position, only the "ę" is usually nasally silent.

This is the thread I had in mind.

A related question: is the ę in "przedsiębiorstwo" always nasal?

Good point. If the final "ę" was pronounced like "e", in this case there would be no difference between 1st and 3rd person singular.