Phonetics Around the World Most of the sound files for this lecture can be found online at: October 22, 2012

Fun Stuff 1.Voiceless [w] and Cool Whip. 2.Some sound inventories: Piraha and Jhu|hoasi. 3. Burmese voiceless nasals.

Pirahã Pirahã is a rather exotic language spoken in the Amazon basin, in Brazil. It has either 10 or 11 phonemes, depending on who’s counting. Pirahã is a controversial language because so many wild claims have been made about it… And it is hard to verify them, due to a lack of research.

Jhu|’hoansi Jhu|’hoansi is a Khoisan language spoken by about 30,000 people in southwestern Africa. Mostly in Namibia and Botswana. Jhu|’hoansi has only five vowels: [i], [e], [u], [o], [a]. But it has a lot of consonants!

Jhu|’hoansi Jhu|’hoansi was (famously) featured in a movie called The Gods Must Be Crazy. My friend Amanda Miller learned the language during a stint with the Peace Corps back in the ‘90s. She currently does research on the phonetics of the language… She just appeared on the show “Daily Planet” last week! planet/october-2012/daily-planet---october /#clip787438

Phonetics Review Last time, we discussed how vowels are articulated along four different dimensions: 1.Height (of tongue) high, mid, low 2.Front/backness (of tongue) front, central, back 3.Rounding (of lips) rounded, unrounded 4.Tenseness tense vs. lax

Consonants Consonants are produced with more obstruction of the airflow through the vocal tract than vowels They are characterized by a different set of attributes: 1.Voicing vocal fold position and movement 2.Place of Articulation location of constriction in the vocal tract 3.Manner of Articulation type of constriction made in the vocal tract

Moving on… The big picture point for today is: languages can combine a relatively small number of articulatory gestures to make a very large number of different sounds.

English Consonant Chart

Yes and No Here’s the complete chart of consonants: Some combinations are unattested Some combinations are impossible Many of these combinations are not found in English

Meanwhile… There are also combinations of gestures for vowels that English doesn’t use note: close = high, open = low, etc...

Front + Round Dutch has vowels that are both front and rounded

Back + Unrounded Vietnamese has vowels that are back and unrounded.

Nasalized Vowels Air can flow through the nose during a vowel, too. Examples from French:

Different Consonant Combos English has bilabial stops, but not bilabial fricatives. Bilabial fricatives exist in languages like Spanish and Ewe, which is spoken in West Africa.

Different Consonant Combos Fricative sounds can also be made at the palate and the velum. Examples from Greek:

English Velar Fricatives There is no velar fricative in English... but there used to be. Examples:German night[na ɪ t]Nacht[naxt] light[la ɪ t]Licht[l ɪ çt] high[ha ɪ ]hoch[h ɔ x] thought[θat]dachte[daxtə] tough[t ʌ f]

Uvular

Pharyngeal

Other Places of Articulation One dialect of Hebrew has uvular and pharyngeal fricatives

Voiceless Nasals Nasalization is disastrous for fricatives. There are no (uncontroversial) nasal fricatives in the languages of the world. There are, however, voiceless nasals in a few languages. Examples from Burmese:

Another Manner: Trills Trills are made when the flow of air through the mouth rapidly forces two articulators to open and close against each other. Kele has both bilabial and alveolar trills. Kele is spoken on the island of Manus, which is north of New Guinea.

Other Airstream Mechanisms Some sounds are made without air flowing out of the lungs. For example, hold your breath and try making the stop sounds [p], [t], and [k]. You can force air out of your mouth with your closed glottis. These sounds are called ejectives. They are symbolized with a ‘ after a stop: [p’], [t’], [k’]

Quechua Ejectives Quechua is spoken in South America

Implosives Sounds can also be made when air rushes into the mouth. One way to do this involves dropping a closed glottis while making a stop. Sounds made in this way are called implosives. Examples from Sindhi (spoken in India):

Velaric Ingressive Sounds A very interesting effect can occur when certain articulations are combined with a velar stop closure Can you differentiate between these sounds? These “click” sounds are from the language Xhosa, which is spoken in southwestern Africa.

What’s going on here? Click sounds are by made by the sound of air rushing into the mouth. How to make a click (step 1): Make a velar stop and another stop in front of the velum. Air will get trapped in between the two closures.

What’s going on here? How to make a click (part 2): Drop the tongue down to expand the chamber of air trapped in the mouth. The air pressure in the chamber will decrease.

What’s going on here? How to make a click (part 3): Release the forward closure. Air rushes into the low pressure area, from outside the mouth.

What’s going on here? How to make a click (part 4): Release the velar closure to make a velar stop sound.

Clicks in connected speech Listen to clicks as they are produced in a long sequence of connected speech. You may experience a phenomenon known as perceptual streaming. Sound file source: