"A Mechanical Model of Vocalization"

Possibly holding ancillary interest to some readers.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-11/aiop-amm111809.php

That tells something about the poor educators.

that sounds cool.

here's the abstract (which I paste here because there's some neat words in it!)

Quote:

The development of supraglottal ﬂow structures during speech1 BYRON ERATH, Purdue University, MICHAEL PLESNIAK, George Washington University �
During voiced speech, periodic vocal fold oscillations create a pulsatile jet that emanates from the glottis and is convected through the supraglottal tract. Unsteadiness in the supraglottal jet trajectory (superior to the vocal folds) has been observed in a variety of laryngeal ﬂow investigations, contributing to sound production due to vortex pairing which occurs within the jet as well as the impingement of the deﬂected jet on physiological structures. However, there is confusion in the literature concerning the mechanisms which contribute to the ﬂow variability. Instabilities in the supraglottal jet include the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, as well as the hypothesized presence of jet �ﬂip-ﬂopping�, the tendency of the glottal jet to detach from one vocal fold wall and reattach to the opposing wall mid-cycle. The morphology of the supraglottal ﬂow ﬁeld is investigated using phase-averaged PIV measurements acquired in the anterior-posterior midplane of the superior vocal fold tract of a dynamically controlled 7.5 time life-size vocal fold model. Flow parameters are scaled to match physiological values. The relevant ﬂuid ﬂow phenomena that impact the supraglottal jet trajectory are identiﬁed. (emphasis added)

pulsatile. fun. fluid dynamics is just really nifty.

Funny. A Space Odyssey of the voice?

Pretty neat. I've have sometimes toyed with the idea of developing a truely alien language, say one with a weird phonology based on a non-humanoid vocal tract (e.g., a forked throat). It's not just the glottis that comes into play with phones. The glottis is buzzed for voiced sounds as opposed to voiceless, but it does something else for creaky voice sounds, and it is shut and dropped, elongating the vocal tract, for glottalized or ejective sounds. The fluid dynamics take on phonology would be interesting indeed. The difference between momentarily stopping the flow of air at certain places (e.g., lips, palate, velum)rather than just contricting it (for fricatives). Also the nasal cavity comes into play when stopping the flow, but opening up the nose for the escape of sound.

sorta like the Bushmen of the Kalahari and their clicks, etc?

sorta like the Bushmen of the Kalahari and their clicks, etc?

Yes. The funny thing about clicks is that we have some in English, but they are not used in words. Just sounds you make when air kissing or urging a horse to start walking.

I'm enamored with the "physics-based" approach they took. It's helpful for people to converse about the thing and it might motivate additional questions.

I'm enamored with the "physics-based" approach they took.

Yes. Acoustic phonology is an interesting field. I used to love gazing at spectrograms of speech and trying to determine what is being said. For folks who would like to experiment, you can use Audacity (link) or from the Netherlands Praat (link).

Originally Posted By: zmjezhd

sorta like the Bushmen of the Kalahari and their clicks, etc?

Yes. The funny thing about clicks is that we have some in English, but they are not used in words. Just sounds you make when air kissing or urging a horse to start walking.

neat, like gasps, and expelled air sounds. always wanted to name a band with just a sound like that...

always wanted to name a band with just a sound like that

Ah, yes, naming in general and band-naming specifically. Here are some of the IPA symbols for clicks: /ǀ/ 'tsk', /ʘ/ (lip-smacking good), /ǁ/ (giddyup).

Another one in this category might be the tiny whistling sound made to call someone's attention.( I don't mean whistling your dog or the crowd whistling away a false move of a player or arbiter/umpire ) Any sign for that?

Any sign for that?

I'd guess that you can use musical notation for the pitch.

There is a famous language called Silbo Gomero (link) used by folks on the Canary Islands. In the first article click on the link for whistled languages to see a short paragraph on the physics of whistles. There seems to be some minor amount of vocalization going on by changing the vocal tract. A whistle is similar in the manner of articulation to a fricative, with the place of articulation at the lips, though a little bit different from /ɸ/ and /β/. I've seen whistlers who also use their cupped hands in front of their mouths to change some aspect of the whistle. There's also a PhD dissertation (in French) on whistled languages from a linguistic and bio-acoustic POV, link.

There was also a musical artificial language called Solresol (link).

Going through those links I came across the yoruba (tonal) language. It reminded me of a bad moment when once in the middle of the night I got a ring from Lagos, Nigeria and had to write down the adress of a mrs. O-la-ray-wa-djoo (phonetical). Transmitted by a French speaking Congolese and with a very bad phone connection. It took long.

I came across the yoruba (tonal) language.

Yes, many people think of Chinese or Vietnamese when tonal languages are mentioned, but there are many more, and not all of them in Asia. In North America, Navajo (aka Din� bizaad) is tonal. Lithuanian and Swedish have some uses of tone in their phonological systems.

Swedish is a very charming, singing kind of language, very gentle sound. Your mentioning Swedish made me take out the old video of Ingmar Bergman's 'Fanny och Alexander'. Subtitled original version. Wonderful film for the season.

panjabi also has tonal elements unlike its neighbouring indic languages.

Fanny och Alexander

Haven't see it since it came out originally. It was a fun movie.

Often parts of speech come close or equal to Dutch, but we don't have the melodious part of it. They say f.i. 'komm nu', pronounced exactly like we do, while the Germans have this sharp sounding "jetzt" , a word that makes you jump immediately. Very authoritative.