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#123181 02/23/04 02:04 PM
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One thing that is problematic, for me at least, is that unlike phonology which is pretty well understood and for which workable models in historical change exist, semantics has never been formalized in a way that allows one to investigate one lnaguage standing still in time, let alone track change over the period of 40K to 100K years.


#123182 02/23/04 02:17 PM
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It was really quite fluid and beautiful.

Phonaesthetics is one way to judge a language. Some folks love simple syllabic patterns that are basically CV-CV, etc. If you listen to incidents of glossolalia (speaking in tongues), this is what a lot of people do when making up a language. I've often wonder what Georgians (and other speakers of Kartvelian languages) do when they make up nonsense syllables. Their language abounds in all kinds of difficult (for us anglophones) consonant clusters, including glottalized stops (see below). One of those languages, Kabardian, is alleged to have only one vowel (with a couple of allophones).

When listening to how folks react to languages unknown to them, I've found that tone makes more of an impact than vowels and consonants. If you were in the lowlands and the language happened to be one of the Maya ones, then it probably had tone and a series of stops that are glottalized. To pronounce a glottalized 'p' for example, pronounce the voiceless bilabial stop as you would usually, but after closing the lips, lower the glottis and release. Lots of languages have them in their phonological inventory, but only Armenian in IE lgs does.


#123183 02/23/04 02:20 PM
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To pronounce a glottalized 'p' for example, pronounce the voiceless bilabial stop as you would usually, but after closing the lips, lower the glottis and release.

make a sound file?



formerly known as etaoin...
#123184 02/23/04 02:30 PM
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Here's some examples from Chumash Native American language from down in SoCal.

http://www.chumashlanguage.com/pronun/pronun-06-tx.html

Ain't the web wunnerful ...



#123185 02/23/04 03:16 PM
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cool! thanks!



formerly known as etaoin...
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