velar trill (was: ~Yeshuewu)

Wed Jun 10 02:51:08 UTC 2009

At 2:32 AM +0000 6/10/09, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>Thank you Laurence for that.  Herb would say
>those sounds are uvular and that there are no
>velar flaps, trills or frics at all in any
>language.

Herb said no such thing, actually.

>  I disagree.  I was going to mention German,
>Hebrew, and even French.  These sounds as I try
>to make them are velar.

French and German have uvular [r]s.  German also
has a voiceless velar fricative [x].  The two are
distinct in place of articulation as well as
voicing.

>I can't do anything with the uvula but gargle.
>
>

Don't try speaking French or German then.

>
>I'm glad the velar flap/trill/fric is written with an "x" in IPA.

Fricative.

>It is as well in truespel.  I wouldn't think it
>possible to have a voiced velar f/t/f, but there
>are over 6k languages out there so you never
>know.

The IPA uses a Greek gamma to represent the
voiced counterpart of [x].  Not particularly
exotic either, and again nobody on the list has
denied this.    The earlier discussion concerned
velar flaps and trills, not simple velar
fricatives.

LH

>
>
>It's just so hard to believe that /r/ in IPA is
>a flapper (Spanish r) and not an English r.
>With 2B folks learning English as a second
>language, it's time to Englishify phonetics.
>That's what truespel is all about.
>
>Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>see truespel.com
>
>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the
>>mail header -----------------------
>>  Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>  Subject: Re: velar trill (was: ~Yeshuewu)
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  At 9:05 PM +0000 6/9/09, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>  >It does not seem like the uvula that is flapping
>>  >or being made contact with by the tongue, its
>>  >the soft tissue of the velum. The uvula is too
>>  >big and floppy and too far back. I can trill my
>>  >uvula and get a big gurgling sound. Not quite
>>  >right. There are velar flaps, trills or
>>  >fricatives in many languages.
>>  >
>>
>>  There are indeed velar fricatives in many
>>  languages (German, Yiddish, Russian, Scots
>>  English for starters). That's the standard [x]
>>  of the IPA notation (assuming you're referring to
>>  voiceless ones).
>>
>>  LH
>>
>>  >
>>  >
>>  >> ---------------------- Information from the
>>  >>mail header -----------------------
>>  >> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  >> Poster: Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
>>  >> Subject: Re: velar trill (was: ~Yeshuewu)
>>  >>
>>  >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>  >>
>>  >> Tom,
>>  >>
>>  >> You misunderstand. The IPA does have symbols for alveolar trill
>>  >> (lower case r), alveolar tap (or flap if you prefer)(lower case r
>>  >> without ascender), uvular trill (small cap R), and even bilabial trill
>>  >> (small cap B). The American English /r/, by the way, a retroflexed
>>  >> central approximant, is an inverted lower case r. It lacks a symbol
>>  >> for velar trill for the very good reason that no velar trill has been
>>  >> reported in human language. The most thorough treatment of the sounds
>>  >> of language, the phonetic database at the UCLA Phonetics Lab, does not
>>  >> report such a sound, not because humans can't learn to produce it, as
>>  >> Mark has demostrated, but because human languages have so far not made
>>  >> use of it. The IPA is, among other things, a representation of the
>>  >> sounds human languages actually use.
>>  >>
>>  >> Ease of articulation is one factor in language change, but it's far
>>  >> from the only one. If loss and development of sounds were simply a
>>  >> matter of ease of articulation, then we would have no explanation for
>>  >> the fact that languages not only lose but also develop some fairly
>>  >> difficult sounds, difficult in the sense that they are learned later
>>  >> than other sounds as children acquire the language as a native
>>  >> language.
>  > >>
>>  >> Herb
>>  >>
>>  >> On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 1:06 PM, Tom
>>Zurinskas<truespel at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>  >> > ---------------------- Information from the
>>  >>mail header -----------------------
>  > >> > Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  >> > Poster: Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
>>  >> > Subject: Re: velar trill (was: ~Yeshuewu)
>>  >> >
>>  >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>  >> >
>>  >> > If the iPA does not recognize these velar
>>  >>trills or alveolar trills (Spanish r) it is
>>  >>sorely lacking. They are real. They are the
>>  >>most often made sounds outside of the English
>>  >>foenubet (set of sounds) ref truespel book one.
>>  >> >
>>  >> > I'd say that all sounds are not equal in
>>  >>difficulty. The harder ones have been dropped
>>  >>from USA English, like the trilled r (which you
>>  >>can still hear in Edison recordings, eg the
>>  >>word great with a multi-trilled r ~grqaet). The
>>  >>most difficult sounds would seem to be those
>>  >>showing droppings, like ~th, ~t, ~h, ~r, ~au
>>  >>(awe), ~l (widow wed wabbit). There would
>>  >>appear to be more mouth-work in saying them, so
>>  >>folks might want to work around them.
>>  >> >
>>  >> >
>>  >> > Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>>  >> > see truespel.com
>>  >> >
>>  >> >
>>  >> >
>>  >> > ----------------------------------------
>>  >> >> Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 10:06:03 -0400
>>  >> >> From: thnidu at GMAIL.COM
>>  >> >> Subject: Re: velar trill (was: ~Yeshuewu)
>>  >> >> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>  >> >>
>>  >> >> ---------------------- Information from the
>>  >>mail header -----------------------
>>  >> >> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>  >> >> Poster: Mark Mandel
>>  >> >> Subject: Re: velar trill (was: ~Yeshuewu)
>>  >> >>
>>  >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>  >> >>
>>  >> >> Herb:
>>  >> >>> There is no IPA symbol for the sound. Â Apparently IPA covers only
>>  >> >>> terrestrial languages.
>>  >> >>
>>  >> >> Randy:
>>  > > >>> Yes, for that you'd have to use the
>>EPA (Extraterrestrial Paraphonetic
>>  >> >>> Alphabet), now under construction. Â It uses a quantum matrix of
>>  >> >>> decillions of symbolic representations of a wide variety of codable
>>  >> >>> media. Â A notable example is chemolfactory character set:
>>  >> >>>
>>  >> >>> http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread281472/pg1
>>  >> >>>
>>  >> >>> " I'm imagining non-auditory languages. For example, one in which
>>  >> >>> creatures emit chemicals and they smell
>>  >>each other. Imagine hundreds of thousands of
>>  >>chemical building blocks in a language. Very
>>  >>smelly."
>>  >> >>
>>  >> >>
>>  >> >> I used to say with assurance that no human language would use this
>>  >> >> phone (which I write phonetically as k with a tilde), at least
>>  >> >> lexically, because the physical effort was too great. But as it came
>>  >> >> with practice, I realized that that could be simply the same
>>  >> >> lectocentrism that brands velar and uvular trills, clicks, front
>>  >> >> rounded vowels, and any other phone that's not in own language as
>>  >> >> "hard".
>>  >> >>
>>  >> >> There are attested (in sf) olfactory languages. The citation I'm
>>  >> >> thinking of, though I can't recall the title or author, is at least 45
>>  >> >> years old and features two humans and an alien who is "cabin boy" of
>>  >> >> his ship. Since his actual name is literally unprintable, the author
>>  >> >> nicknames him "Tommy Loy", and ends the story with a very shaggy
>>  >> >> allusion.
>>  >> >>
>>  >> >> Klingon, however, was developedXXXXXXXX documented by a human
>>  >> >> linguist, Dr. Marc Okrand, and is representable in IPA.
>>  >> >>
>>  >> >> m a m
>>  >> >>
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