tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Aug 12 17:20:21 1999
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Re: Vowels, and pronunciation advice
>Mailing-List: contact [email protected]; run by ezmlm
>From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
>Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 15:19:19 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
>
>On 12 Aug 1999 18:02:59 -0000 [email protected] wrote:
>
>> There are no dividing lines in your mouth that
>> universally declare for all speakers where n stops and ng starts (ask me
>> or Lawrence about the way the letter t winds up among people with an Indian
>> accent sometime for a good example).
>
>Is that the anecdote about how the tongue tip actually points
>downward so that the top surface of the tongue is pressed
>against the back of the front teeth?
Probably related. See, in Sanskrit/Hindi, there are two "t" (and "d")
sounds, neither one of which is quite the one we use in English. And
what's more, to English-speakers one of them sounds closer to English to t,
while to Hindi-speakers the English t seems closer to the other. So one of
the characteristics of the Indian accent is using the "wrong" t.
>> So each language whacks the
>> sound-space up into sounds which it considers distinct, but not all the
>> same way. We in English consider the p-sound in "pin" to be the same sound
>> as in "spin", even though one is aspirated and one isn't.
>
>Ahhh. "Spin" is actually "s-p-hin". I never noticed that. Cool.
Actually, I thought the way most people pronounce it the "p" is aspirated
in "pin" but not in "spin". So it's "pin" that's "p-hin", while "spin" is
"s-pin".
>Then again, one of my philosopher professors from Georgia was
>convinced that there was no difference between the sounds of the
>words "pin" and "pen" and if two other people demonstrated to
>him that they could both speak and hear the difference, he would
>just claim that it was a conspiracy of pretense. We were just
>pulling his leg. It's just one word to him.
Yep, in some dialects the "e" and "I" sounds are conflated (that'd be a
pain for a Klingonist!) And they solve the ambiguities the same way
Krotmag speakers do. Just like a Krotmag-er would say "qam yaN" for "toe"
(foot toe) so as not to confuse it with "'etlh yan" (sword sword), people
say "ink pen" and "stick pin" to distinguish the items. Qov has related
similar problems in her own experience talking to Estonians. Estonian has
*three* vowel-lengths (short, long, and extra-long or something). Very few
languages have that many. Qov says no matter how she tried she couldn't
distinguish among them all. And yet these native speakers could somehow
claim to tell the difference... and even demonstrated it, getting it right
every time. Conspiracies abound.
>> But to a Hindi
>> speaker, they're very different sounds, different as n and ng. And watch
>> where your tongue hits your palate when you say "keel" versus "cool";
>> they're not even close. But we don't consider them different sounds.
>
>Got me again. So, "cool" is to "keel" as {qul} is to "cool".
I've heard that used as a way to explain how to pronounce {q}, in an Arabic
textbook.
>> >as for <r>, I pronounce it as a trill always, even syll.-fin.
>> >(incl. <rgh>) although Okrand on the tapes more often than not
>> >pronounces an american semi-consonantal thingy there.
>
>The first time I met Okrand, he was presenting a talk on Klingon
>pronunciation and he said there were difficult-to-pronounce
>consonant clusters. I suggested that {rgh} was difficult because
>the trill is at the tip of the tongue while the {gh} was at the
>back and shifting from one to the other makes my tongue spaz
>out, but he said that {rgh} was EASY, and demonstrated with an
>{r} that is not trilled at all. He then went on to point out
>that {Dt} (in {taDtaH}) or {tD} (in {qatDI'}) are much more
>difficult. Meanwhile, I consider these to be just as easy if the
>consonants are compromised as much as his {r} in {rgh}. I didn't
>argue the point at the time, however. Hey, there were people
>listening and I didn't want to publicly hassle a hero.
Good points, all of what you said. For all he talks about no assimilation,
let's face it, it happens. We even have "vulqan"+"ngan" => "vulqangan",
which is obvious assimilation.
>> I've studied dozens of languages, some with really funky phoneme-stocks.
>> And I'm really good at pronouncing alien, exotic sounds. Except one. I
>> can't for the life of me get a good lingually-trilled r.
>
>Meanwhile, that's one of the things I do best. My friend with
>whom I'm studying Turkish is jealous. From the tapes I've heard,
>I think the Turkish "r" is particularly beautiful. It is such a
>delicate trill. So light and brief, yet so essential for
>clearity, like the French aspiration at the end (and sometimes
>the begining and even throughout the whole word) of the word
>"oui", which Americans typically don't notice and don't
>pronounce. We tend to pronounce it like "we". That's not how it
>sounds when a Frenchman says it.
Also, the "w" of "oui" isn't really a "w" like in English (which is the
semivowel (or glide) form of /u/); I think it's actually the semivowel form
of the vowel in French words like "du", a rounded high front vowel. At
least the sound in "lui" is like that, certainly.
>> It's been
>> suggested that my highly-arched palate actually prevents me from doing
>> it, but I'm not sure.
>
>It's a copout. My trills are barely back from the gum line. They
>almost touch my teeth. The arch is irrellevant.
Thanks. I retain hope.
>> More on assimilation and care-taking when speaking Klingon. An interesting
>> story.
>> ....
>She's not the only one who heard it that way. That's certainly
>what *I* heard. I had to go through the same backtracking.
Yow. I definitely need to be more careful then!
>Then again, I thought your retort was even weirder:
>
>"vIlo'DI' jIH, yap mep be' leH."
>
>"When *I* use it, a plastic woman's maintenance is enough."
>
>I also wondered if I had misheard {laH} instead of {leH}...
Such imaginative (and sick and twisted) minds...
~mark