For example, does any language distinguish /p/ vs /p^(h)/ vs /ph/ vs /p^(h)h/? Guaranteed aforementioned clusters occur within the same syllable, rather then broken up by syllable boundary, like /p.h/ or /p^(h).h/.
I'm having trouble pronouncing the voiceless glottal fricative [h] and the voiced glottal fricative [ɦ] differently from one another. The differentiation between the two sounds seems really minor and they appear to be hard to distinguish in rapid speech.
Are there any good pointers on how to properly pronounce them?
Also, I was curious to know if there are any languages that include both of these glottal fricatives within their phonological systems.
Why is the distinction between between voiced affricates and voiced fricatives (i.e. /z/ and /dz/) much rarer and unstabler than the distinction between voiceless fricatives and voiceless affricates (i.e. /s/ and /ts/).
Examples of what I mean:
English has both /ʒ/ and /dʒ/ but there are basically no minimal pairs.
Japanese lost the distinction between [z] and [dz] very quickly after [dz] developed as an allophone of /d/.
Hungarian phonemically distinguishes /z/ and /dz/ except at the beginning of a word.
Polish distinguishes 3 pairs of these but minimal pairs seem to be not too common.
In Middle Chinese /ʑ/ and /dʑ/ merged in speech.
Does anybody know any languages where such distinctions are highly important? I can produce and hear the differences but the difference seems too small to be consistent to me (maybe because I do not speak any languages that makes such a distinction).
I don't see why it can't, but I can't seem to find any attested examples in natural languages.
I've read that concerning the aspirated voiceless stops /pʰ, tʰ, kʰ/, the change may have been first something like /pɸ, tθ, kx/ (which is common among people not used to aspiration, e.g. I've heard in a video someone speaking Sanskrit and using /kx/ for /kʰ/), and then finally /ɸ, θ, x/. To me, it's logical. But what about the voiced stops? often the change (lenition) occurs when they are post-vocalic (e.g. Spanish, Occitan, Gothic, and the 'Begadkefat' phenomenon in Aramaic, Hebrew and possibly Phoenician), but it is not the case in Greek. Would it be possible that /b, d, g/ were actually aspirated like [bʱ, dʱ, gʱ] in Ancient Greek? (I'm thinking about PIE *dʱ eventually becoming Latin /f/, so probably following something *ð > *θ > *ɸ in Proto-Italic).
I know that ɦ isn't really a true "voiced glottal fricative" but is ʔ͜ɦ counts as affricate?
Hello,
I have a Colombian friend whose name starts with V. She claims that her family and friends distinguish between v and b in their variety of Spanish, but I'm not convinced -- almost every time I used /β/ for orthographic "v" she thought I was saying /v/ - I think she distinguishes them because she's bilingual. Are there any varieties of Spanish where words spelled with v are pronounced with the voiced labiodental fricative?
She's going to ask her friends/family and I've asked her for recordings.
I teach English for a TV program in Japan and I had an existential crisis today when I was told that I was mispronouncing 'thanks' because I pronounced 'th' voiced. I looked up the IPA pronunciation and lo and behold it is listed as unvoiced basically everywhere. I'm a 27 year old male from the US- Portland, OR area, in case that has anything to do with it. I tried to Google it and see if anyone else had the same experience and I couldn't find much. Is it really that uncommon of a thing in the US? Is there anyone else here that pronounces 'thanks' with a voiced dental fricative?
I found a pronunciation website online and to my ears the first 2 or 3 examples are clearly unvoiced but I feel like there are voiced examples towards the bottom end? Am I crazy?
I'm studying the Glottalic airstream right now and I want to know if it's possible to make fricative with a glottalic ingressive mechanism
I've seen some languages that contains these phonemes and they contrast with their "actual" voiceless counterparts. Navajo for example.
This is regarding the IPA section on the far right http://i.imgur.com/QlSdx4A.png. Are any of ħ, ʜ, h, ɦ distinct in any language enough to cause confusion?
For example, s and z are distinct enough to cause confusion in English (sit vs zit) although some speakers may use them interchangeably in some words without causing confusion ( organise vs organize ).
So, I've read that the glottal "fricatives" ([h] and [ɦ]) aren't actually fricatives, but instead "transitions" of the glottis with no specific place of articulation. I really couldn't find any other info on this, so I'm not exactly sure what is meant by "transition". And with no specific place of articulation, is it solely manner of articulation that distinguishes them? What is actually going on when these sounds are made?
Hey there my question was how could we represent the voiced velar fricative in Hungarian?
EDIT: To clarify, I'm looking for languages which have a consonantal /h/ or /ɦ/ which can alternate for syllabicity, meaning that they can occur as a syllable nucleus (like a vowel does) in some phonological environments. It would be especially interesting to uncover anything which parallels what is reconstructed for PIE: CVh or hVC > Ch̩ or h̩C (as in some instances of zero-grade ablaut), that is, glottal fricatives alternating for syllabicity when adjacent vowels are absent.
I'm a bit confused about the following:
" The Proto-Germanic voiced dental fricative [ð], which was an allophone of /d/ in certain positions, became a plosive [d] in all positions throughout the West Germanic languages. Thus, it affected High German, Low German, Dutch, Frisian and Old English alike. It did not spread to Old Norse, which retained the original fricative. Because of its much wider spread, it must have occurred very early, during Northwest Germanic times, perhaps around the 2nd century.
English has partially reversed this shift through the change /dər/ > /ðər/, for example in father, mother, gather and together."
Given how no other Germanic languages have reversed this trend (the Danish "soft D" is an approximant, not an actual fricative) why did English regain the voiced dental fricative?
Can someone explain this sentence? Edit: The sentence is correct. I was assuming it is English but I might be wrong. The directions for the assignemnt state to change the statement into rule notation. And name the process in question for each case. Im getting confused because it says to "between" which implies 2 letters/sounds but then it lists 3.
UPDATE: It was a typo. FIXED: A schwa is inserted between a voiced stop and a word final voiced fricative.
Thank you for all the help. I read through all your comments. It helped me to gain some examples. I appriciate it.
[ð] itself is a rather uncommon phoneme in the world, being only present in a few Germanic and Semitic languages plus a number of isolates. In English, I can't even think of any adjectives nor verbs that begin with [ð], and yet, all of the words that do begin with or contain [ð], are among the most commonly used in English: This, they, that, there, the, etc. etc.
Why is this? How did this become? Is there a reason for this pattern? Or is it purely coincidental? Why are all the [ð] words only pronouns and articles?
ADDENDUM: It exists in a few more European languages than just the aforementioned.
"Heavy sigh"
In words like father and mother, even if I replace the latter sound with the former, I don't hear any difference. So what's happening here?
I am in the process of creating a phonology for my engelang. But even after reading the relevant Wikipedia articles, I am still having a hard time getting a handle on the voiced palato-alveolar fricative (ʒ), the voiced retroflex fricative (ʐ), and the voiced alveolo-palatal fricative (ʑ), so I thought I’d pick your lovely brains.
- If you are like me and do not use retroflex consonants or palatal fricatives in your day-to-day life, what was your process for learning to pronounce them and know you were pronouncing them?
- How are /ʒ/, /ʐ/, and /ʑ/ realized in your conlangs?
- Is /j/ ever realized as [ʒ], [ʐ], or [ʑ] in any of your conlangs?
- How surprised would you be if you discovered a natlang in which /j/, /ʒ/, /ʐ/, and /ʑ/ are realized as they are in your conlangs?
Thank you for letting me post on your lovely subreddit!
Edit: Oops! When I asked about the pronunciation of “palatal” fricatives in my first question, I had in mind what the IPA chart refers to as alveolo-palatal fricatives (i.e. /ɕ ʑ/). Sorry about the confusion!
In what instances are the Polish letters “h” and “ch” pronounced as ɣ?
I keep wanting to pronounce it like the hebrew ח [χ] cause I know some hebrew. Can someone tell me exactly how I do it in my mouth? I'm trying but it keeps either sounding like a h with more air or I just slip into the hebrew sound ח
Hey!
I have been learning languages for the last few years, and i do focus on pronunciation and accents a lot, so i have some knowledge when it comes to IPA and the way different sounds are produced and what they are called, but i don't know all of the terminology of course, so im sorry if some things here are hard to understand.
Recently, however, i noticed a weird thing in my native accent. I am German, living in Bavaria, with a light Southern German Accent that is definitely still Standard High German rather than some more distinct dialect.
In syllables that normally consist of p/t/k+(schwa, but i don't pronounce that)+n, i replace the voiceless consonant with a glottal stop(and the n with a ng or m if the replaced sound was a k or p). If the first consonant is a voiceless b/d/g instead, i do something similar without a glottal stop.
For d, i just pronounce an n, but flap my tongue harder against the roof of my mouth, a bit like an alveolar tap.
For b and g, i also replace the n with a more forceful version of m/ng like before, but in addition to that, i also do something weird that feels like a glottal stop, but with the airway of the nose instead of the mouth. It only works with my tongue in velar position.
Sorry if this is a bit unclear, does anyone have an idea what i am talking about, and what that thing is? I am happy to give more information, i just don't know what else could be of importance here.
Thanks!
It's basically the g sound but when you say it you lower your tongue a bit so it doesn't touch the roof of your mouth to allow air flow.
It's just very hard for me to link these two sounds together. I know they are both voiced alveolars but I just can't seem to find common characteristics between them when I speak. I try to say /z/ quickly with small pauses between each repetition and try to transform it into /ɾ/ but it just doesn't happen. On the other hand, when I do the same thing with /d/ it works like magic.
For instance, the beginning of the words "think" and "that" look the same but sounds different. Wouldn't it have made more sense to create another digram like 'dh'?
Granted this is from 1934 so one obviously has to read it in its historical context, but I thought this was amusing and thought you'd all appreciate it too.
Daniel Stephen Jones, 1934, "somɑːlɪ ħ ənd ʕ" Le maître phonétique. 45: 8-7
>ðə vɪzɪt əv ə neɪtɪv əv səmɑːlɪlænd, Haji Farah, tʊ ðə fonɛtɪks læbrətrɪ æt University College geɪv ən ɔpətjunɪtɪ fər ɪgzæmɪnɪŋ ə fju fiˑtʃəz əv ðə ʕ sɑʊnd wɪtʃ ɪz ən aʊtstændɪŋ foʊnim əv ðə spiˑtʃ əv ðæt kʌntrɪ.
>ðə sɪmɪlærɪtɪ əv ɪts tæmbə tə wɔt ðə sʌbdʒɪkt kɔːld ðə "kæml sɔŋ" ʃʊd bɪ sɪgnɪfɪkənt tə ðə njuː skuːl əv baɪolɪŋgwɪsts, hʊ ətɛmpt tə treɪs, ɔfn wɪð mʌtʃ koʊdʒənsɪ, ðɪ ɔrɪdʒɪn əv mɛnɪ spiˑtʃ saʊndz tʊ ə nɔn-hjʊmən sɔəs. ɪt ɪz kjuˑrjəs ðæt ðə oʊvəlæp bɪtwiˑn ðə ʕ-kʌntrɪz ənd ðə kæml-kʌntrɪz ʃʊd bɪ sou ɪkstɛnsɪv. hɛr Schwidetsky maɪt bɪ ɪntrɪstɪd ɪn ðɪs.
I'm not sure to what extent this is a serious suggestion by Jones or if he's just making fun of whoever Herr Schwidetsky and his colleagues are. (I'm not quite sure who that refers to... maybe he meant Frau Schwidetzky?)
Rule 4, phonemic inventories don't come from people imitating animals.
P.S. who knew that "biolinguist" was attested this early?!
EDIT: Author was Stephen Jones, not Daniel Jones. (No relation).
