velar trill (was: ~Yeshuewu)

[Paul A Johnston, Jr.]

Dear All,
Actually, I got it too.  It seems fricated when I do it, but there's definitely a trill possible there, using what flexibility there is in the tongue at that point.  Sounds related to an /x/, but quite different from an /R/.  Wonder if there's an IPA symbol.

Paul Johnston

----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
Date: Monday, June 8, 2009 8:31 pm
Subject: velar trill (was: ~Yeshuewu)

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------
> ------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      velar trill (was: ~Yeshuewu)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------
>
> On Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 7:53 PM, Herb Stahlke
> <hfwstahlke at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Mark,
> >
> > I can't get a trill there. Â Could you describe what you're
> producing?>
> > I'll have to read more Cherryh.
> >
> > Herb
>
> It took a lot of experimentation and practice, mostly while
> driving to
> work. (A little while ago, while I was writing the previous post, my
> wife and daughter both decided they'd had enough and left the room.
> It's not a pretty sound!)  I'll try to describe how to get it:
>
> - Place the dorsum of the tongue against the front of the velum, as
> for a fronted [k]. For me this is approx. as in "cute".
> - Retract the tongue slightly (a couple of mm?) toward its root while
> keeping the same velar point of contact, sliding the tongue backward
> across that spot. If you produced a stop now, it would sound like a
> backed palatal.
> - Now tense the tongue where it touches the velum, and lax it forward
> of that point.
> - Pulmonically force breath out through the closure. For me,
> especially when developing the sound, it took a good deal of
> effort to
> keep the closure tight enough to produce a trill, and a corresponding
> effort to force the breath through. I couldn't do it more than a few
> times without stopping to rest. Like [x] for an American English
> speaker, it got easier with practice.
>
> Mostly I use it at science-fiction events; my daughter, when I produce
> it elsewhere, refers to it as "laughing in kifish to freak the
> mundanes". ("Mundane" is fannish slang for 'non-fan'.) The "actual"
> sound, I think, is a fast chattering of the kif inner set of teeth,
> anatomically impossible for humans.
>
> --
> Mark Mandel
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org