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Mesaka Language
Mesaka, or Ugarə, is a Tivoid language spoken in Cameroon. Batomo may be a separate language, or it may be the same as Motomo (Oliti, Matchi), a dialect of Iceve-Maci (''Ethnologue'', 22nd edition). Phonology Vowels Vowel length is often contrastive in sequences of two similar vowels. Sequences of dissimilar vowels are not observed unless there's a consonant in-between. Mesaka is also a tonal language Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey emph ... with two tones: high and low. References Languages of Cameroon Tivoid languages {{Cameroon-lang-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cameroon
Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Its coastline lies on the Bight of Biafra, part of the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean. Due to its strategic position at the crossroads between West Africa and Central Africa, it has been categorized as being in both camps. Its nearly 27 million people speak 250 native languages. Early inhabitants of the territory included the Sao civilisation around Lake Chad, and the Baka hunter-gatherers in the southeastern rainforest. Portuguese explorers reached the coast in the 15th century and named the area ''Rio dos Camarões'' (''Shrimp River''), which became ''Cameroon'' in English. Fulani soldiers founded the Adamawa Emirate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Close Central Unrounded Vowel
The close central unrounded vowel, or high central unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , namely the lower-case letter ''i'' with a horizontal bar. Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as barred i. Occasionally, this vowel is transcribed ( centralized ) or (centralized ). The close central unrounded vowel is the vocalic equivalent of the rare post-palatal approximant . Some languages feature the near-close central unrounded vowel (), which is slightly lower. It is most often transcribed in IPA with and , but other transcriptions such as and are also possible. In many British dictionaries, this vowel has been transcribed , which captures its height; in the American tradition it is more often , which captures its centrality, or , which captures both. is also used in a number of other publications, such as ''Accents of English'' by John C. Wells. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tonal Language
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey emphasis, contrast and other such features in what is called intonation, but not all languages use tones to distinguish words or their inflections, analogously to consonants and vowels. Languages that have this feature are called tonal languages; the distinctive tone patterns of such a language are sometimes called tonemes, by analogy with ''phoneme''. Tonal languages are common in East and Southeast Asia, Africa, the Americas and the Pacific. Tonal languages are different from pitch-accent languages in that tonal languages can have each syllable with an independent tone whilst pitch-accent languages may have one syllable in a word or morpheme that is more prominent than the others. Mechanics Most languages use pitch as intonation to convey ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open Central Unrounded Vowel
The open central unrounded vowel, or low central unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in many spoken languages. While the International Phonetic Alphabet officially has no dedicated letter for this sound between front and back , it is normally written . If precision is required, it can be specified by using diacritics, typically centralized . It is usual to use plain for an open central vowel and, if needed, for an open front vowel. Sinologists may use the letter (small capital A). The IPA has voted against officially adopting this symbol in 1976, 1989, and 2012. The Hamont-Achel dialect of Limburgish has been reported to contrast long open front, central and back The human back, also called the dorsum, is the large posterior area of the human body, rising from the top of the buttocks to the back of the neck. It is the surface of the body opposite from the chest and the abdomen. The vertebral column runs ... unrounded vowels. This is extremely unusual. Fe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open Vowel
An open vowel is a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels (in U.S. terminology ) in reference to the low position of the tongue. In the context of the phonology of any particular language, a ''low vowel'' can be any vowel that is more open than a mid vowel. That is, open-mid vowels, near-open vowels, and open vowels can all be considered low vowels. Partial list The open vowels with dedicated symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet are: * open front unrounded vowel * open front rounded vowel This vowel is not known to occur as a phoneme distinct from in any language. * open back unrounded vowel * open back rounded vowel There also are central vowels that do not have dedicated symbols in the IPA: * open central unrounded vowel or (commonly written as if it were front) * open central rounded vowel There is no unambiguous way of transcribing the open central ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open-mid Back Rounded Vowel
The open-mid back rounded vowel, or low-mid back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The IPA symbol is a turned letter ''c'' and both the symbol and the sound are commonly called "open-o". The name ''open-o'' represents the sound, in that it is like the sound represented by , the close-mid back rounded vowel, except it is more open. It also represents the symbol, which can be remembered as an ''o'' which has been "opened" by removing part of the closed circular shape. In English, the symbol (or ) is typically associated with the vowel in "thought", but in Received Pronunciation (standard British English), Australian English, New Zealand English and South African English that vowel is produced with considerably stronger lip rounding and higher tongue position than that of cardinal , i.e. as close-mid or somewhat lower. Open-mid or even open realizations are f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open-mid Front Unrounded Vowel
The open-mid front unrounded vowel, or low-mid front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is a Latinised variant of the Greek lowercase epsilon, . Features Occurrence 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 navigation Open-mid vowels Front vowels Unrounded vowels ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open-mid Vowel
An open-mid vowel (also mid-open vowel, low-mid vowel, mid-low vowel or half-open vowel) is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned one third of the way from an open vowel to a close vowel. Partial list The open-mid vowels that have dedicated symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet are: * open-mid front unrounded vowel * open-mid front rounded vowel * open-mid central unrounded vowel (older publications may use ) * open-mid central rounded vowel (older publications may use ) * open-mid back unrounded vowel * open-mid back rounded vowel The open-mid back rounded vowel, or low-mid back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The IPA symbol is a turned letter ''c'' a ... Other open-mid vowels can be indicated with diacritics of relative articulati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Close-mid Back Rounded Vowel
The close-mid back rounded vowel, or high-mid back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . Close-mid back protruded vowel The close-mid back protruded vowel is the most common variant of the close-mid back rounded vowel. It is typically transcribed in IPA simply as , and that is the convention used in this article. As there is no dedicated diacritic for protrusion in the IPA, the symbol for the close-mid back rounded vowel with an old diacritic for labialization, , can be used as an ''ad hoc'' symbol for the close-mid back protruded vowel. Another possible transcription is or (a close-mid back vowel modified by endolabialization), but this could be misread as a diphthong. For the close-mid near-back protruded vowel that is usually transcribed with the symbol , see near-close back protruded vowel. If the usual symbol is , the vowel is listed here. Features Occu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Close-mid Front Unrounded Vowel
The close-mid front unrounded vowel, or high-mid front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . For the close-mid front unrounded vowel that is usually transcribed with the symbol or , see near-close front unrounded vowel. If the usual symbol is , the vowel is listed here. Features Occurrence 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 navigation Close-mid vowels Front vowels Unrounded vowels ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Close-mid Vowel
A close-mid vowel (also mid-close vowel, high-mid vowel, mid-high vowel or half-close vowel) is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned one third of the way from a close vowel to an open vowel. Partial list The close-mid vowels that have dedicated symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet are: * close-mid front unrounded vowel * close-mid front rounded vowel * close-mid central unrounded vowel (older publications may use ) * close-mid central rounded vowel (older publications may use ) * close-mid back unrounded vowel * close-mid back rounded vowel The close-mid back rounded vowel, or high-mid back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . Close-mid back protruded vowel The close ... Other close-mid vowels can be indicated with diacritics of relativ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Close Back Rounded Vowel
The close back rounded vowel, or high back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is u. In most languages, this rounded vowel is pronounced with protruded lips ('endolabial'). However, in a few cases the lips are compressed ('exolabial'). alternates with labio-velar approximant in certain languages, such as French, and in the diphthongs of some languages, with the non-syllabic diacritic and are used in different transcription systems to represent the same sound. Close back protruded vowel The close back protruded vowel is the most common variant of the close back rounded vowel. It is typically transcribed in IPA simply as (the convention used in this article). As there is no dedicated IPA diacritic for protrusion, the symbol for the close back rounded vowel with an old diacritic for labialization, , can be used as an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
