Icelandic -tl-

[Frye, David]

I heard it on an NPR report, which i just found online.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126055027

The pronunciation question (with NPR's Joe Palca giving his best shot [he simplifies the final sound into -t], followed by an Icelandic volcano expert) begins at 2:51.

-David

________________________________________
From: nahuatl-bounces at lists.famsi.org [nahuatl-bounces at lists.famsi.org] On Behalf Of Clayton,  Mary L. [clayton at indiana.edu]
Sent: Saturday, April 17, 2010 12:34 PM
To: nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
Subject: Re: [Nahuat-l] Icelandic -tl-

Hello all,
     Following David's tip, I found a couple of sound clips online that
purport to be by native speakers, and which sound very credible in that
they are nothing that a foreigner would come up with based on the
spelling. However, they are fairly different. Whether there are
different dialects of Icelandic I have no idea.
     I've listened to the clearer (and somehow more convincing) of
these until my ears have phonetic fatigue and I have to leave it alone
for a while. (This is *great* fun for anyone in phonetics.) This one
includes a phonetic transcription, but even it seems to be a bit
influenced by spelling, in that the first consonant, spelled with f,
sounds clearly like a v (i.e., the voiced counterpart of f). For his
final syllable, I hear not tl but kl, that is, a laterally released
somewhat fronted k. This would make a certain amount of sense, given
the spelling -kull. There is clearly nothing voiced in that final
syllable, and if the last vowel is a voiceless front-rounded u (the
"French u" written in phonetics with a dieresis over it), then with a
following voiceless l, the effect would be very similar. The other
speaker, a woman, has what I hear as a clear tl.

This clip has a couple of repeats, nicely spaced.

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqXc8i8CvNs

The same sound sample, with a phonetic transcription, followed by a
number of foreign attempts.

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jq-sMZtSww


Both of the above have the same sound sample as the wiki article:

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyjafjallajokull

     Unfortunately, the Wikipedia phonetic chart doesn't discuss tl,
and we *know* that it isn't just a combination of t and l, as many
English speakers pronounce it. In addition, the wikipedia entry for
Icelandic language is somewhat suspect in matters of
phonetics/phonology. It lists voiceless and velar laterals (l-sounds)
as separate phonemes, but then it also gives aspirated and unaspirated
voiceless stops as phonemes even though the text describes them as
allophones. There is no mention of a Nahuatl-type tl.

And if you aren't tired of Icelandic by now, scroll down to the very
bottom of that last site to see the names of some of their other
volcanoes!

     Cheers,
        Mary

Quoting "Frye, David" <dfrye at umich.edu>:

> Hello all,
>
>
>
> This is very off-topic, but I just heard a report on the volcano in
> Iceland, Eyjafjallajokull, the one that is causing such aeronautic
> trouble in Europe, and it sounded to my untrained ears that the
> Icelandic pronunciation of their "ll" is precisely the same as
> Nahuatl "tl."
>
>
>
> I also noticed that non-Icelandic reporters find it impossible to say.
>
>
>
> The New York Times pronunciation guide,
> http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/iceland-volcano-spews-consonants-and-vowels/, turns the middle "ll" into two sounds, "t" followed by "l" (keeping the "t" with the preceding syllable and annexing the "l" to the following one), and then has this about that tricky final
> -tl
> sound:
>
> "the 't' at the end kind of sticks for a second and pulls away with a
> hint of a glottal 'l.'"
>
> Guess that's the best you can do if you only have American English
> phonemes to work with.
>
>
>
> David
>
>
>



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