LL-L "Phonology" 2005.06.17 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 17.JUN.2005 (03) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West) Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2005.06.16 (05) [E/Cornish]


Agon Ron ha Dan, I've had a flare up of an old RSI injury in both my hands
and am finding it extremely difficult to type and mouse-click at all so
please excuse the roughness of this reply.

D a screvaz:
"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."

I understand that... I didn't say 'must' in relation to [K] in Welsh
English... I said 'expect'. It's interesting to hear Irish spoken by native
speakers of Irish English, as they adapt it to their anglicised phonology...
it is not the case that Irish English = English with Irish Gaelic phonology
thus Irish spoken by Irish English speakers = phonemically correct Irish
Gaelic.

"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."

I haven't, and now I rue making a linguistic fool of myself by presuming
phonemic closeness to Icelandic. I understand Faroese is sort of median in
the dialect continuum between Icelandic and West Norwegian dialects. I don't
know, though. I often write on here without thinking my points
throughproperly, as Ed Alexander can attest.

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 , or . 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/.

I use Curnoack Hethow and we still use [K] word medially where /ll/ is
indictaed, i.e.m, in _collan_ ['koK.l at n]

"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 and/or etc. I don't know
whether was used."

That is very interesting... I do not find Welsh that close to Cornish in
sound myself. I know a Welsh speaker and he can't understand a word fo
Cornsh when I speak it. I suspect he gets caught out by the d > s shift and
a few others... he doesn't recogniuse that _tavaz_ is _tafod_ for instance,
or that _o ve_ is _a fy_. Subtle differences breed much confusion...

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

Hen Ned Grey an tha :)

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

Ha genaw a soce [hae.gEdn at .@.so::s].


Criostóir.

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From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2005.06.16 (02) [E]


Davud Barrow wrote:
"I have a glottal stop for the 't' in medial 'tl' so I'm wondering if the
sound development goes something like this: [?l] --> [hl] --> [K]"

I suppose it could in some cases... in my case I think the pressure between
aspirate [t] and unstressed [l] led to [K] as a compromise sound.. I can see
that [h] and [l] migt compromiuse to [K] too.

Go raibh maith agat,

Criostóir.

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

Críostóir (above):

> I suppose it could in some cases... in my case I think the pressure
> between aspirate [t] and unstressed [l] led to [K] as a compromise
> sound.. I can see that [h] and [l] migt compromiuse to [K] too.

I suspect that what's important here is that /l/ first becomes devoiced
under any of those circumstances.

Interestingly, liquid devoicing tends to lead to fricativization.  I hear
that a lot when final /r/ gets devoiced, for instance in many dialects of
Turkish, Azeri and Spanish.  The resulting sound is somewhat similar to that
of what in Czech is written <ř> (r hachek, IPA r + up-tack, SAMPA [Q\]).

I'm even tempted to go as far as suggesting that Welsh has the phonemic pair
"voiced l" (<l>) and "voiceless l" (<ll>), where the latter has acquired
friction.  This may sound ridiculous to some, but think of cases like Zulu
"voiced h" (<h>, SAMPA [h\]) versus "voiceless h" (<hh>, SAMPA [h]).  Add to
this the fact that Welsh does indeed have another such liquid pair: "voiced
r" (<r>, SAMPA [r]) versus "voiceless r" (<rh>, SAMPA [r_0]), where I often
hear the latter pronounced with some friction (ca. SAMPA [Q\]) also.

So, OK, these are not Lowlands languages, but it may be of interest
nevertheless.

Be easy on your hands, a soce, and get better soon!

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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