André ([info]n_true) wrote,
@ 2005-01-14 01:51:00
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Current mood:uvular
Entry tags:english

Linguistic Randomness
I just noticed that it's not very hard for me to produce two kinds of uvular clicks. Why aren't they covered in the IPA chart I ask? Or am I mixing them up with the uvular ejective stop and implosives?

[yes, this is intended to be not a linguaphileslinguaphiles post, I'm just wondering]

P.S.: By the way, pretty new icon I have, huh? ;)


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[info]robot_mel
2005-01-13 04:55 pm UTC (link)
I love the seal icon, though I can't make head or tale of seal script. What does it say?

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I'm not telling, I'm not telling... :)
[info]n_true
2005-01-13 04:59 pm UTC (link)
Hehe, okay, in actual simplified Chinese it says:

尔喜我
里欢就
克乌很

Read upward-down from left to right. I leave the translation to you. ^^

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upward-down from left to right
[info]pne
2005-01-14 06:32 am UTC (link)
ITYM "upward-down from right to left" (which is the way I would have expected the seal to read, anyway).

Where'd you get it done? Or did you do it yourself?

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Re: upward-down from left to right
[info]n_true
2005-01-14 07:22 am UTC (link)
Yes, I meant "from right to left", sorry.

I did do it myself. I have found a pretty seal-like Chinese unicode font. The rest I did with Paint. I like the outcome. :)

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[info]rydel23
2005-01-13 05:09 pm UTC (link)
using ur usericon as a flash card? ;)

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[info]n_true
2005-01-14 03:19 am UTC (link)
*lol*

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[info]kaikias
2005-01-13 06:36 pm UTC (link)
You probably are. I'd like to know what the second kind is (I can only figure out the implosive, with glottal closure) - what exactly are you pronouncing for there to be confusion between a click and an ejective? The air's kind of going the wrong way.

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[info]n_true
2005-01-14 03:25 am UTC (link)
Hm, you mean clicks are automatically implosive? I guess you're right, I didn't think of that.

Okay, then: How do I notice the difference between an uvular click and an uvular implosive? :>

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[info]kaikias
2005-01-14 03:36 am UTC (link)
That one you'll have to take to someone who knows a lot more about clicks and implosives than I do. :)

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[info]n_true
2005-01-14 03:46 am UTC (link)
Gotta find a !Xõó speaker, huh? ;)

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[info]kaikias
2005-01-14 03:59 am UTC (link)
That'd work neatly, yes.

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[info]ubykhlives
2005-01-13 08:26 pm UTC (link)
Very nice icon. It suits you. :P

I think what you're pronouncing is probably a glottalised uvular implosive. A "click", by definition, must have one dorsal closure (either velar or uvular) and one predorsal. Lucky I know a bit of Bushman... :D

And the odds are that if it's not covered in the IPA chart, it's not used in any known language. (Although the IPA is missing quite a few sounds that are used in known languages. The alveolar non-sibilant fricatives of Icelandic spring to mind.)

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[info]kaikias
2005-01-13 08:52 pm UTC (link)
*fangirls your username like whoa*

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[info]ubykhlives
2005-01-14 05:26 am UTC (link)
LOL, I like yours too, and the icon. mu-si-na - your username, I take it. (It's been a while since I've read Linear B, and damn it's different to Classical Greek. :D)

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[info]kaikias
2005-01-14 05:35 am UTC (link)
Got it in one. (And a thousand years or so of evolution plus a mildly sadistic writing system will do that to a language.)

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[info]n_true
2005-01-14 05:43 am UTC (link)
If I had a paid account or a load of possibilities for userpics I would probably create dozens of them with my name written in various writing systems so I could use the icon that fits to the language I'm using or talking about. ;)

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[info]ubykhlives
2005-01-14 05:51 am UTC (link)
LOL, that could be fun!

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[info]janwo
2005-01-14 06:49 am UTC (link)
You might try an animated .gif exchanging the different images all in one file.

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[info]n_true
2005-01-14 07:30 am UTC (link)
Right... other people have done this as well. I wonder why I didn't think of that. Thanks. :>

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[info]n_true
2005-01-14 03:31 am UTC (link)
Ah, I didn't know about this definition of a click. Makes sense, though. I didn't have phonetics / phonology at the university yet. Okay, so at least I can produce a perfect uvular implosive now, hehe.

How are those alveolar non-sibilant fricatives written in the Icelandic orthography? I haven't yet come across them, I think.
Also the Czech ř is said to be not covered in the IPA chart.

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[info]ubykhlives
2005-01-14 05:49 am UTC (link)
I got most of my phonology from experimenting with making sounds, and learning the names of those sounds later on ("Oh, so that's a pharyngeal fricative!") If you could hear the bizarre clicks, thuds, squeals and hums that come from my mouth over the course of a day, you'd have me committed. ;) Plus Bushman was the start of my linguistic forays, and once you've got that down pat, even Ubykh seems like a step backwards!

Yes, it's said that Czech ř is unique to that language; there are very few phonemes that can lay claim to that. There are a couple of others I know of, though.

And I have no idea how Icelandic deals with those alveolar fricatives... :) My best guess is that they'd be covered under θ and ð, but it's no more than a guess (I have absolutely no Icelandic). In Peter Ladefoged's book Sounds of the World's Languages, he described them and gave some minimal pairs - but I don't recall if he also gave the Icelandic orthography for them. I'll have a look and keep you posted.

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[info]timwi
2005-01-14 12:31 am UTC (link)
Funny you should be asking this question, since you know that some Khoisan languages have hundreds of clicks and they're not all in the IPA table either.

P.S.: By the way, pretty new icon I have, huh? ;)

Yes, it's pretty new! ;-)

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[info]janwo
2005-01-14 01:01 am UTC (link)
A.f.a.I.k. all pronounceable clicks can be transcribed in IPA, mostly using the diacritics and combinations of signs. A colleague of mine is working on !Xõo (and other lgs. down there), which has several series modifications for every click:
- labialized, velarized, palatalized, glottalized, pharyngealized etc.
- preaspirated, postaspirated, unaspirated
- voiceless aspirated / voiced aspirated
- nasalized / not nasalized
etc. And most of the times, these clicks are part of affricates, so that a combination of basic IPA characters is necessary.
There's no need to have 150 specific characters only for these clicks since they are not simple but complex articulations. The IPA "letters" however are mostly the representations for simple/basic articulations (or ranges thereof) which can be modified with diacritics as needed.
Basically, it should be possible to transcribe every sound phenomenon a human can produce using only his articulatory organs with IPA -- it's only a matter of skill and fantasy. ;)

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[info]n_true
2005-01-14 03:36 am UTC (link)
!Xõó? The language of "The Gods Must Be Crazy"? Oh my God. They seem to have more clicks that consonants whatsoever (and I think they *do*). I'd be interested in reading some sort of results about his efforts.

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[info]janwo
2005-01-14 03:48 am UTC (link)
Hm. Just come by at our department or check the library here. The colleague will be back from Southern Africa in early February. I'll let you know whether & when he is presenting his work here.
And - yes - they do have a hell of a lot of clicks.

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[info]janwo
2005-01-25 10:10 am UTC (link)
At another blog I found a useful bit of information on the (non)velarity of clicks:
http://ablauttime.blogspot.com/2005/01/lsa-blogging.html

Seems your idea was not too far from cutting-edge phonetics. ;)

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[info]janwo
2005-01-14 01:11 am UTC (link)
> By the way, pretty new icon I have, huh? ;)

Yes, indeed a pretty seal. How'd you do it? (Or did you have it done?)

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[info]n_true
2005-01-14 03:40 am UTC (link)
Some time ago I found a nice source of free Chinese fonts (Unicode!) that I downloaded. They're partly traditional/simplified, but there are also a lot of artistic (is that the right word?) ones among them. Including this seal script. The rest I did using paint. :)

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