LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.09.20 (04) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 20 September 2006 * Volume 04
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From: Paul Tatum [ptatum at blueyonder.co.uk]
Subject: LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.09.18 (02) [D/E]

Hi Ron

> From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
> Subject: Phonology
>
> Paul, I, too, used to assume that the said letters stood for interdentals in
> Gaulish. However, lately I have been reading here and there that it is now
> assumed that they stood for /ts/, etc., which surprises me given that there is a
> Greek letter for this affricate.

Yes I just looked at the article on Gaulish in the Wikipedia (source of
all knowledge and nonsense that it is :)), and it too says that they
represented /ts/. It also surprises me, but learn something new every
day, eh?

Paul Tatum

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From: Paul Tatum [ptatum at blueyonder.co.uk]
Subject: LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.09.20 (03) [E/F/LS]

Hi Henno,

>> examples of this from around the world, and in that sense it not a
>> change to which a lot of weight can be attached (as opposed say to the
>> change of /D/ to /l/ in Frisian, which is a lot more unusual).
>
> What change from /D/ to /l/ are you talking about? In what variety of
> Frisian? Examples?

According to the chapter on Frisian in "The Germanic Languages" ed.
Koenig and Van Der Auwera: "The dialect of Söl retained the voiced
alveolar fricative ([Ä‘]) up to this century. In word-final position [Ä‘]
has changed to [r] (cf biir 'both'); intervocalically [Ä‘] has become [l]
or [r], although it is still written <đ>: faađer, 'father', bröđer
'brother'." (page 529).

Of course, you're Frisian, mine's a book, you may know better....

Paul Tatum

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From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.09.18 (01) [E]

>From: clarkedavid8 at aol.com
>Subject: LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.09.18 (03) [E]
>
>English-speaking children seem to have difficulty in picking up the "th" sound
>and often pronounce it as "f" (though not "s" or "t") for quite a long time,
>requiring quite emphatic repeated correction from their parents before they get
>it right. Perhaps, therefore, it is a sound that will normally disappear in
>languages fairly quickly if it arises, unless the speakers of the language attach
>particular importance to it, as a sign of maturity or nationality. Why is it also
>present in Spanish? Is this due to an Iberian substrate, Visigothic influence or
>an organic development from Vulgar Latin?
>
Do you mean _all_ English-speaking children or just English
English-speaking children?

In England the /T/->/f/ and /D/->/v/ processes have been spreading
outwards from London into the rest of England for a long time (decades
at least). They're quite ingrained in the cities now except in the very
north east and south west of England, and common in country areas too.
It's natural that with such exposure to these role models in the big bad
world, English children are going to pick it up not as any speech
difficulty but as normal English.

In Scotland, on the other hand, this sort of speech isn't normal and as
a result - as far as I've observed - children simply use the /T/, /D/ of
the Scots or Scottish English they grow up with from the beginning.

It's worth noting that even in England, people will say something like,
"I fought you were doing those ovver fings the following Fursday?" ie
they may not pronounce the "th" in most words but they still pronounce
it in certain words such as "those", "the", "this" and "that". It shows
that it's not that they _can't_ make these sounds, it's just the sort of
English they've grown up with.

A lot of people do consider this form of English to be uneducated and
try to train themselves or their children out of it (no harder than
learning to speak Pig Latin all the time, I imagine!), but we
dispassionate scientists know that it's not a case of educated and
uneducated English but of old and new English, don't we? ;)

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

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From: 'Elsie Zinsser' [ezinsser at icon.co.za]
Subject: LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.09.18 (02) [D/E]

Hi all,

Scott, the label ‘Hottentot’ is derogatory and should not be used.

The name was given to the indigenous Khoikoi by the first VOC arrivals at the
Cape of Good Hope in the 1650s. The name was possibly derived from the Dutch word
for "stammerer" or "stutterer", a description applied to the unusual language of
click sounds that the people spoke. Another meaning was possibly an adaptation to
a word the Khoi used in tribal songs "hautitou", that sounds similar to "hottentot".

"Khoikhoi", means "men of men", or "a pure race". The word "hottentot"' was
extended to be a descriptive term, defined by the Shorter Oxford Dictionary as
"one of inferior culture and intellect."

Regards,

Elsie Zinsser

From: 'Scat' [Scat at cfl.rr.com]
Subject: LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.09.18 (01) [E]

***

I tracked my baby daughter's speech in a notebook, starting with
her first babblings. She included all common pronunciations of
consonants in European languages, including the single tap r, the
rolled r, and the uvular r and well as dental/aveolar and released/
unreleased consonants and all of the vowel sounds as well as the
clicks of Hottentot. I encouraged her by speaking French one day
and Spanish the next. Her mother was with her all day long and spoke
nothing but English to her; therefore, her growth in English was not
stunted. She had trouble with {asks}, {asked}, and {spaghetti}. She
12 months old before the mastered those consonant clusters. My oldest
boy (two years younger) had the same successes and difficulties.

Scott Catledge

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