LL-L "Phonology" 2005.06.16 (05) [E/Cornish]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 16.JUN.2005 (05) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Elsie Zinsser <ezinsser at icon.co.za>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2005.06.15 (06) [E]

Hi all,

Thanks, Ron for the example in Afrikaans. Of course! One never notices
those voiceless h's becoming k's as in [ǽ 'khɛt]

[the *default* pronunciation of /h/ in Afrikaans is voiced....
I believe that non-voicing occurs only in some dialects in certain
environments, such as right after a voiceless consonant (e.g., _ek het_)].

I want to disagree with your describing the Zulu _isishlala_ as [isi"Ka:Ka]
(tree)
I hear the hl sound as more of a breathed fricative than the plain voiced
/l/ or
indeed /k/ and would use the IPA [ɬ] to describe it. Hence ['i z i ɬ a ɬ a]

Cheerio, and in the Zulu plural: Salani kahle! (Stay well!)

Elsie Zinsser

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From: Dan Prohaska danielprohaska at bluewin.ch
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" [E]


>> Ron wrote:

>>> "Rule No. 3 applied as well, in some varieties of Icelandic
>>> -- or so I vaguely remember."


Críostóir a screfas:

>> I suppose [K] must also be found in Faroese, then, due to its
>> closeness to Icelandic. I am surprised the sound is
>> comparatively rare given is predictable development from the
>> /tl/ cluster. Is it not known in any other Lowlandic languages
>> and variants? I would expect it to have survived word medially
>> in Cornish English (it hasn't) and word initially in at least
>> one of the Welsh Englishes (it hasn't).


Dhys lowena, Críostóir.

If one sound is part of the sound inventory of one language it does not mean
that it "must" also be present in a closely related language, or even part
of a variety of the same language.

Unvoiced-[l] in Icelandic occurs word initially, where it is spelt <hl> and
before certain voiceless consonants (<l> + C), as far as I can remember. In
intervocalic position <ll> is realised as [tl].

Faeroese lacks unvoiced-[l] in initial position. I don't know whether it
occurs as an allophone of [l] before unvoiced consonants, but my guess is
that it doesn't. Intervocalic <ll> is similar to Icelandic, if a little
"softer". I'd transcribe it as [dl].


<kalla> "to call": I <'khatla>, F <'khadla>.


Have you ever listened to Faeroese? Though the connection to Icelandic is
audible, sometimes even comprehensible, the overall phonology is quite
different. They sound distinctly different, more so than, say, Swedish and
Norwegian, in my opinion.


>> Also:

>> "In English-speaking communities Welsh [K] used to be heard as

>> akin to /f(l)/ (hence e.g. Lloyd > Floyd, Llewelyn > Flello) or

>> /hw/ (e.g. Llewelyn > Whellin > Wellin(g))."


Did you know that there are indications in the manuscripts, that Cornish had
a distinct unvoiced-[l] phoneme? It most likely fell in with /l/ in initial
position, but there are a few words in which it seems to have been
preserved, variously spelt <lh>, <ll> or <lk>. It was also preserved in
comparative and superlative forms of adjectives ending in /l/ as well as in
the subjunctive of verbs with a stem ending in /l/.


According to contemporary descriptions it was "retracted" and different from
Welsh lateral-unvoiced-[l]. We may assume that it could have been unvoiced
and retroflex (?).


A friend told me that a test has been done with kids from Welsh speaking
homes who were educated through English only (must have been some decades
ago, before Welsh was compulsory in the curriculum) and they were asked to
transcribe several Welsh words without knowing the Welsh standard spelling.
Apparently there were a number of graphemes that came up that were also used
by native Cornish writers, such as <lh> and/or <hl> etc. I don't know
whether <fl> was used.


>> There seems to have been a development here from a perception of
>> [K] as [fl] in the sixteenth century to one of [K] as [T] or
>> [tl] by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This can be
>> seen in the comparison of Lloyd (Llwyd 'grey') / Floyd (c.
>> sixteenth century, remember Shakespeare used Fluellen for
>> Llywellyn) with Sealth for Seattle (eighteenth or nineteenth
>> century).


Note that the famous 18th century Celtic scholar was called Edward Lhuyd.


>> Lastly:
>> "Nahuatl < Nahuatl/Aztec _naawaK_ > _naawas'_ )..."
>> I am pleased you mentioned this example - a correct
>> pronunciation of the /tl/ grapheme as a lateral fricative in
>> Nahuatl led me to realise that I used [K] regularly in this
>> position, hence my sudden post yesterday about phonemic
>> isolates.
>> Go raibh maith agat,
>> Criostóir.


Nag ues dhe vos acomptys, sos.

Bennath Dew genough, ['b{dn@ tIU 'gEnUh]

Dan

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Phonology

Hi, Elsie!

> I want to disagree with your describing the Zulu _isishlala_ as
> [isi"Ka:Ka] (tree)
> I hear the hl sound as more of a breathed fricative than the
> plain voiced /l/ or
> indeed /k/ and would use the IPA [ɬ] to describe it. Hence ['i z i ɬ a ɬ
> a]

Nee, nee!  We *are* talking about the same thing.  IPA [ɬ] (belted "l") is
the same as SAMPA [K] (which is just a substitute, has nothing to do with
"k" – see http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/home.htm).

Folks, thinking about this sound and foreign perception thereof, it really
opens up the fascinating area of foreign sound representation (and
phonemization in some instances).  It is interesting to see what is seen as
the prominent feature in deciding what native phoneme to use to substitute a
foreign sound.

Take English the two phonemes represented by written <th> in English:
(SAMPA) /T/ and /D/.  Speakers of some languages represent them by the
(dental or alveolar) stops /t/ and /d/ respectively.  *Position* is what
counts here.  This is the case also in some native English dialects, such as
those of Ireland and of some areas in the Eastern United States, perhaps as
a result of <th> conversion in (Celtic) Irish.  In other languages it is the
fricative quality that counts: /T/ -> /s/, /D/ -> /z/.

Going back to the voiced /h/ in Afrikaans – sort of.  I readily admit that
oftentimes I have a hard time hearing if a speaker of South African English
is a native speaker or if he or she speaks it as a second language after
Afrikaans.  At least to me as an outsider, native South African English
sounds like someone with an Afrikaans accent speaking English.  I am pretty
sure that South Africans can generally tell the difference.  At the moment,
the only South African English speakers I have access to have lived in the
United States for decades, and at least one seems to have spoken a different
language in the home, so I do not think they are reliable informants.  So
here is what I would like to know:

Do native speakers of South African English …
(1) … aspirate voiceless stops, and …
(2) … use voiced /h/ … and
(3) … devoice final consonants?

I am fairly confident that the answer to (1) is "no."

Also, I noticed that in South African English /i/ before a syllable-final
consonant, at least before /k/, is [@] (schwa), as in Afrikaans.

Thanks in advance!

Reinhard/Ron
***
An áit a bhuil do chroí is ann a thabharfas do chosa thú.

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