velar trill (was: ~Yeshuewu)

Wed Jun 10 02:32:27 UTC 2009

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.  I disagree.  I was going to mention German, Hebrew, and even French.  These sounds as I try to make them are velar.  I can't do anything with the uvula but gargle.

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

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
> >> >>
> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >> > _________________________________________________________________
> >> > Insert movie times and more without leaving Hotmail®.
> >> >
> >>http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/QuickAdd?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_QuickAdd_062009
> >> >
> >> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >> >
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> >
> >_________________________________________________________________
> >Insert movie times and more without leaving Hotmail®.
> >http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/QuickAdd?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_QuickAdd_062009
> >------------------------------------------------------------
> >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. 
http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_BR_life_in_synch_062009
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org