Alawa Language
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Alawa Language
Alawa (Galawa) is a moribund Indigenous Australian language spoken by the Alawa people of the Northern Territory. In 1991, there were reportedly 18 remaining speakers and 4 semi-speakers. Phonology Consonants Alawa has a typical consonant inventory for an Indigenous Australian language, with five contrastive places of articulation, multiple lateral consonants, and no voicing contrast among the stops. Note: there are no standardised IPA symbols for alveopalatal stops. Vowels The vowel system of Alawa is made up of four vowel phonemes: the high front vowel /i/, the high back vowel /u/, the mid front vowel /e/, and the low central vowel /a/. There are no rounding contrasts or length contrasts in this language. Vocabulary Capell (1942) lists the following basic vocabulary items:Capell, Arthur. 1941–1942, 1942–1943Languages of Arnhem Land, North Australia ''Oceania'' 12: 364–392, 13: 24–51. : See also * References External links Bibliography of Alawa languag ...
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Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a Megadiverse countries, megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with Deserts of Australia, deserts in the centre, tropical Forests of Australia, rainforests in the north-east, and List of mountains in Australia, mountain ranges in the south-east. The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south east Asia approximately Early human migrations#Nearby Oceania, 65,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Period, last i ...
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Voiceless Alveolar Stop
The voiceless alveolar, dental and postalveolar plosives (or stops) are types of consonantal sounds used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolar plosives is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is t. The voiceless dental plosive can be distinguished with the underbridge diacritic, and the postalveolar with a retraction line, , and the Extensions to the IPA have a double underline diacritic which can be used to explicitly specify an alveolar pronunciation, . The sound is a very common sound cross-linguistically. Most languages have at least a plain , and some distinguish more than one variety. Some languages without a are colloquial Samoan (which also lacks an ), Abau, and Nǁng of South Africa. There are only a few languages which distinguish dental and alveolar stops, Kota, Toda, Venda and many Australian Aboriginal languages being a few of them. Features Here a ...
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Retroflex Lateral Approximant
The voiced retroflex lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is l`. The retroflex lateral approximant contrasts phonemically with its voiceless counterpart in Iaai and Toda. In both of these languages it also contrasts with more anterior , which are dental in Iaai and alveolar in Toda. Features Features of the voiced retroflex lateral approximant: Occurrence In the following transcriptions, diacritics may be used to distinguish between apical and laminal . See also *Index of phonetics articles A * Acoustic phonetics * Active articulator * Affricate * Airstream mechanism * Alexander John Ellis * Alexander Melville Bell * Alfred C. Gimson * Allophone * Alveolar approximant () * Alveolar click () * Alveolar consonant * Alveolar ejecti ... Notes References * * * * * * * External links * {{IPA ...
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Alveolar Lateral Approximant
The voiced alveolar lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral approximants is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is . As a sonorant, lateral approximants are nearly always voiced. Voiceless lateral approximants, are common in Sino-Tibetan languages, but uncommon elsewhere. In such cases, voicing typically starts about halfway through the hold of the consonant. No language is known to contrast such a sound with a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative . In a number of languages, including most varieties of English, the phoneme becomes velarized (" dark ''l''") in certain contexts. By contrast, the non-velarized form is the "clear ''l''" (also known as: "light ''l''"), which occurs before and between vowels in certain English standards. Some languages have only clear ''l''. Others may not have a clear ''l'' at all, or have ...
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Lateral Consonant
A lateral is a consonant in which the airstream proceeds along one or both of the sides of the tongue, but it is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth. An example of a lateral consonant is the English ''L'', as in ''Larry''. Lateral consonants contrast with central consonants, in which the airstream flows through the center of the mouth. For the most common laterals, the tip of the tongue makes contact with the upper teeth (see dental consonant) or the upper gum (see alveolar consonant), but there are many other possible places for laterals to be made. The most common laterals are approximant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a ...s and belong to the class of liquid consonant, liquids, but lateral fricative consonant, fricatives and affricate co ...
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Bilabial Nasal
The voiced bilabial nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is m. The bilabial nasal occurs in English, and it is the sound represented by "m" in ''map'' and ''rum''. Only very few languages (e.g. Wyandot) are known to lack this sound. Features Features of the voiced bilabial nasal: Varieties Occurrence , , 'I' , , , - , colspan="2" , Vietnamese , , , , , , 'salt', , See Vietnamese phonology , - , colspan="2" , Welsh , , , , , , 'mother', , See Welsh phonology , - , colspan="2" , West Frisian, , , , , , 'lake', , See West Frisian phonology , - , colspan="2" , Yi , , / , , , , 'bamboo', , , - , Zapotec, , Tilquiapan, , , , , , 'animal' , , Palatalized Velarized See also * List of phonetics topics A * Acoustic phonetics * Active articulator * Affricate * Airs ...
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Velar Nasal
The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''English'' and ''ink''. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is N. The IPA symbol is similar to , the symbol for the retroflex nasal, which has a rightward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem, and to , the symbol for the palatal nasal, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the left stem. Both the IPA symbol and the sound are commonly called ' eng' or 'engma'. As a phoneme, the velar nasal does not occur in many of the indigenous languages of the Americas or in many European, Middle Eastern or Caucasian languages, but it is extremely common in Australian Aboriginal languages and is also common in many languages of Sub-S ...
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Palatal Nasal
The voiced palatal nasal is a type of consonant used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a lowercase letter ''n'' with a leftward-pointing tail protruding from the bottom of the left stem of the letter. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J. The IPA symbol is visually similar to , the symbol for the retroflex nasal, which has a rightward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem, and to , the symbol for the velar nasal, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem. The IPA symbol derives from and , for nasality and denoting palatal. In Spanish and languages whose writing systems are influenced by Spanish orthography, it is represented by the letter , called ''eñe'' ("enye"). In French and Italian orthographies the sound is represented by the digraph . Occitan uses the digraph , the source of the same Portuguese digraph called ''ene-agá'' (), used therea ...
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Retroflex Nasal
The voiced retroflex nasal is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is n`. Like all the retroflex consonants, the IPA symbol is formed by adding a rightward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of an en (the letter used for the corresponding alveolar consonant). It is similar to , the letter for the palatal nasal, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the left stem, and to , the letter for the velar nasal The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''Englis ..., which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem. Features Features of the voiced retroflex nasal: Occurrence Retroflex ...
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Alveolar Nasal
The voiced alveolar nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in numerous spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar nasals is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is n. The vast majority of languages have either an alveolar or dental nasal. There are a few languages that lack either sound but have , such as Yoruba, Palauan, and colloquial Samoan (however, these languages all have . An example of a language without and is Edo). There are some languages (e.g. Rotokas) that lack both and . True dental consonants are relatively uncommon. In the Romance, Dravidian, and Australian languages, ''n'' is often called "dental" in the literature. However, the rearmost contact, which gives a consonant its distinctive sound, is actually alveolar or denti-alveolar. The difference between the Romance languages and English is not so much where the tongue contacts the roof of the mouth but the part of the tongu ...
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Nasal Stop
In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majority of consonants are oral consonants. Examples of nasals in English are , and , in words such as ''nose'', ''bring'' and ''mouth''. Nasal occlusives are nearly universal in human languages. There are also other kinds of nasal consonants in some languages. Definition Nearly all nasal consonants are nasal occlusives, in which air escapes through the nose but not through the mouth, as it is blocked (occluded) by the lips or tongue. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound. Rarely, non-occlusive consonants may be nasalized. Most nasals are voiced, and in fact, the nasal sounds and are among the most common sounds cross-linguistically. Voiceless nasals occur in a few languages such as Burmese, Welsh, Icelandic and ...
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Voiceless Bilabial Stop
The voiceless bilabial plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in most spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is p. Features Features of the voiceless bilabial stop: Varieties Occurrence The stop is missing from about 10% of languages that have a . (See voiced velar stop for another such gap.) This is an areal feature of the circum-Saharan zone (Africa north of the equator plus the Arabian peninsula). It is not known how old this areal feature is, and whether it might be a recent phenomenon due to Arabic as a prestige language (Arabic shifted to but the timing of this change is not known), or whether Arabic was itself affected by a more ancient areal pattern. It is found in other areas as well; for example, in Europe, Proto-Celtic and Old Basque are both reconstructed as having but no . Nonetheless, the sound is very common cross-linguistically. Most la ...
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