Etymology of "Ska"

[Dennis R. Preston]

I also have this /l/ in my mind's ear. As I reproduce it in my own
mouth, it seems 1) to have a backer tongue-tip contact than is usual
(perhaps even slightly retroflexed, touching behind rather than on
the alveolar ridge) and 2) to have a geminate or "long" /l/ in the
second /l/ of the word.

I am surer about the second than the first, since a variety of
articulatory positions might achieve the same acoustic effect.

dInIs

>At 12:47 AM -0400 6/11/05, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>>Unfortunately, the _Gleaner_ at the time seems to have been directed at
>>>Jamaica's slender white minority, so it apparently missed the first
>>>five
>>>years of the ska "rage". It wasn't until ska had become popular in
>>>England
>>>(Millie Small's "My Boy Lollipop" was a huge hit there)
>>
>>As it was here, reaching no.2 in 1964. The singer herself appeared on
>>Dick Clark's American Bandstand.
>
>There was *something* about those /l/s in the way she sang
>"Lollipop"; can anyone help identify the relevant phonetic feature?
>I can still hear it in my mind's ear 40 years later...
>
>Larry (with no special /l/, alas)


--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages
A-740 Wells Hall
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
Phone: (517) 432-3099
Fax: (517) 432-2736
preston at msu.edu