|
Contour (phonetics)
In phonetics, contour describes speech sounds that behave as single segments but make an internal transition from one quality, place, or manner to another. Such sounds may be tones, vowels, or consonants. Many tone languages have contour tones, which move from one level to another. For example, Mandarin Chinese has four lexical tones. The high tone is level, without contour; the falling tone is a contour from high pitch to low; the rising tone a contour from mid pitch to high, and, when spoken in isolation, the low tone takes on a dipping contour, mid to low and then to high pitch. They are transcribed with series of either diacritics or tone letters, which with proper font support fuse into an iconic shape: . In the case of vowels, the terms diphthong and triphthong are used instead of 'contour'. They are vowels that glide from one place of articulation to another, as in English ''boy'' and ''bow.'' They are officially transcribed with a non-syllabic sign under one of the vowel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. The field of phonetics is traditionally divided into three sub-disciplines based on the research questions involved such as how humans plan and execute movements to produce speech (articulatory phonetics), how various movements affect the properties of the resulting sound (acoustic phonetics), or how humans convert sound waves to linguistic information (auditory phonetics). Traditionally, the minimal linguistic unit of phonetics is the phone—a speech sound in a language which differs from the phonological unit of phoneme; the phoneme is an abstract categorization of phones. Phonetics deals with two aspects of human speech: production—the ways humans make sounds—and perception—the way speech is understood. The communicative modali ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prenasalized Stop
Prenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent (or occasionally a non-nasal sonorant such as ) that behave phonologically like single consonants. The primary reason for considering them to be single consonants, rather than clusters as in English ''finger'' or ''member'', lies in their behaviour; however, there may also be phonetic correlates which distinguish prenasalized consonants from clusters. Because of the additional difficulty in both articulation and timing, prenasalized fricatives and sonorants are not as common as prenasalized stops or affricates, and the presence of the former implies the latter. In most languages, when a prenasalized consonant is described as "voiceless", it is only the oral portion that is voiceless, and the nasal portion is modally voiced. Thus, a language may have "voiced" and "voiceless" . However, in some Southern Min (including Taiwanese) dialects, voiced consonants are preceded by voiceless prenasalization: . Yeyi ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linguo-pulmonic Consonant
Pulmonic-contour clicks, also called sequential linguo-pulmonic consonants, are consonants that transition from a click to an ordinary pulmonic sound, or more precisely, have an audible delay between the front and rear release of the click. All click types (alveolar , dental , lateral , palatal , retroflex , and labial ) have linguo-pulmonic variants, which occur as both stops and affricates, and are attested in four phonations: tenuis, voiced, aspirated, and murmured (breathy voiced). At least a voiceless linguo-pulmonic affricate is attested from all Khoisan languages of southern Africa (the Khoe, Tuu, and Kx'a language families), as well as (reportedly) from the Bantu language Yeyi from the same area, but they are unattested elsewhere. Analysis Traditionally, contour clicks were believed to be uvular in their rear articulation, whereas non-contour clicks were thought to be velar. However, it is now known that all clicks are uvular, at least in the languages that have bee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nǁng Language
Nǁng or Nǁŋǃke, commonly known by the name of its dialect Nǀuu (Nǀhuki), is a moribund Tuu (Khoisan) language once spoken in South Africa. It is no longer spoken on a daily basis, as the speakers live in different villages. The dialect name ǂKhomani is used for the entire people by the South African government, but the descendants of ǂKhomani-dialect speakers now speak Khoikhoi. As of June 2021, only one speaker of the Nǀuu dialect and two of the ǁʼAu dialect remain. Classification and name Nǁng belongs to the Tuu (Taa–ǃKwi) language family, with extinct ǀXam being its closest relative and Taa its closest living relative. The two recent dialects are Nǀuu (Nǀhuki) and ǁʼAu (ǁKhʼau). Extinct dialects include ǂKhomani and Langeberg. ǂKhomani had been recorded by Doke and by Maingard, Nǀhuki by Weshphal, and Langeberg by Dorothea Bleek. As of 2010, most remaining speakers spoke Nǀuu dialect, and this was the name Nǁng appeared under when it was redisc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khoisan Languages
The Khoisan languages (; also Khoesan or Khoesaan) are a group of African languages originally classified together by Joseph Greenberg. Khoisan languages share click consonants and do not belong to other African language families. For much of the 20th century, they were thought to be genealogically related to each other, but this is no longer accepted. They are now held to comprise three distinct language families and two language isolates. All Khoisan languages but two are indigenous to southern Africa and belong to three language families. The Khoe family appears to have migrated to southern Africa not long before the Bantu expansion. Ethnically, their speakers are the Khoikhoi and the San (Bushmen). Two languages of east Africa, those of the Sandawe and Hadza, originally were also classified as Khoisan, although their speakers are ethnically neither Khoikhoi nor San. Before the Bantu expansion, Khoisan languages, or languages like them, were likely spread throughout sou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Initiation (phonetics)
In phonetics, the airstream mechanism is the method by which airflow is created in the vocal tract. Along with phonation and articulation, it is one of three main components of speech production. The airstream mechanism is mandatory for sound production and constitutes the first part of this process, which is called initiation. The organ generating the airstream is called the ''initiator'' and there are three initiators used in spoken human languages: * the diaphragm together with the ribs and lungs ''(pulmonic'' mechanisms), * the glottis ''(glottalic'' mechanisms), and * the tongue ''(lingual'' or ''"velaric"'' mechanisms). Though not used in any language, the cheeks may be used to generate the airstream ''(buccal'' mechanism, notated in VoQS). See buccal speech. After a laryngectomy, the esophagus may be used as the initiator (notated for simple esophageal speech and for tracheo-esophageal speech in VoQS). See esophageal speech. ''Percussive'' consonants are produced w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Click Consonant
Click consonants, or clicks, are speech sounds that occur as consonants in many languages of Southern Africa and in three languages of East Africa. Examples familiar to English-speakers are the '' tut-tut'' (British spelling) or '' tsk! tsk!'' (American spelling) used to express disapproval or pity, the '' tchick!'' used to spur on a horse, and the '' clip-clop!'' sound children make with their tongue to imitate a horse trotting. Anatomically, clicks are obstruents articulated with two closures (points of contact) in the mouth, one forward and one at the back. The enclosed pocket of air is rarefied by a sucking action of the tongue (in technical terminology, clicks have a lingual ingressive airstream mechanism). The forward closure is then released,This is the case for all clicks used as consonants in words. Paralinguistically, however, there are other methods of making clicks: ''under'' the tongue or as above but by releasing the rear occlusion first. See #Places of articul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ǃXóõ Language
Taa , also known as ǃXóõ (also spelled ǃKhong and ǃXoon; ), is a Tuu language notable for its large number of phonemes, perhaps the largest in the world. It is also notable for having perhaps the heaviest functional load of click consonants, with one count finding that 82% of basic vocabulary items started with a click. Most speakers live in Botswana, but a few hundred live in Namibia. The people call themselves ǃXoon (pl. ǃXooŋake) or ʼNǀohan (pl. Nǀumde), depending on the dialect they speak. The Tuu languages are one of the three traditional language families that make up the Khoisan languages. is the word for 'human being'; the local name of the language is , from 'language'. (ǃXóõ) is an ethnonym used at opposite ends of the Taa-speaking area, but not by Taa speakers in between. Most living Taa speakers are ethnic ǃXoon (plural ) or 'Nǀohan (plural ). Taa shares a number of characteristic features with West ǂʼAmkoe and Gǀui, which together are cons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voice (phonetics)
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts: *Voicing can refer to the ''articulatory process'' in which the vocal folds vibrate, its primary use in phonetics to describe phones, which are particular speech sounds. *It can also refer to a classification of speech sounds that tend to be associated with vocal cord vibration but may not actually be voiced at the articulatory level. That is the term's primary use in phonology: to describe phonemes; while in phonetics its primary use is to describe phones. For example, voicing accounts for the difference between the pair of sounds associated with the English letters "s" and "z". The two sounds are transcribed as and to distinguish them from the English letters, which have several possible pronunciations, depe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fijian Language
Fijian (') is an Austronesian language of the Malayo-Polynesian family spoken by some 350,000–450,000 ethnic Fijians as a native language. The 2013 Constitution established Fijian as an official language of Fiji, along with English and Fiji Hindi and there is discussion about establishing it as the "national language". Fijian is a VOS language. Standard Fijian is based on the speech of Bau, which is an East Fijian language. A pidginized form is used by many Indo-Fijians and Chinese on the islands, while Pidgin Hindustani is used by many rural ethnic Fijians and Chinese in areas dominated by Indo-Fijians. History Phonology The consonant phonemes of Fijian are as shown in the following table: The consonant written has been described as a prenasalized trill or trilled affricate . However, it is only rarely pronounced with a trilled release; the primary feature distinguishing it from is that it is postalveolar, , rather than dental/alveolar. The sounds and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trilled Affricate
Trilled affricates, also known as post-trilled consonants, are consonants which begin as a stop and have a trill release. These consonants are reported to exist in some Northern Paman languages in Australia, as well as in some Chapacuran languages such Wariʼ language and Austronesian languages such as Fijian and Malagasy. In Fijian, trilling is rare in these sounds, and they are frequently distinguished by being postalveolar. In Malagasy, they may have a rhotic release, , be simple stops, , or standard affricates, . Most post-trilled consonants are affricates: the stop and trill share the same place of articulation. However, there is a rare exception in a few neighboring Amazonian languages, where a voiceless bilabially post-trilled dental stop, (occasionally written ) is reported from Pirahã and from a few words in the Chapacuran languages Wariʼ and Oro Win. This sound also appears as an allophone of the labialized voiceless alveolar stop The voiceless alveolar, den ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toda Language
Toda is a Dravidian language noted for its many fricatives and trills. It is spoken by the Toda people, a population of about one thousand who live in the Nilgiri Hills of southern India. The Toda language originated from Toda-Kota subgroup of South Dravidian. Phonemic inventory Vowels For a Dravidian language, Toda's sixteen vowels is an unusually large number. There are eight vowel qualities, each of which may occur long or short. There is little difference in quality between the long and short vowels, except for , which occurs as when short and as when long. Consonants Toda has an unusually large number of fricatives and trills. Its seven places of articulation are the most for any Dravidian language. The voiceless laterals are true fricatives, not voiceless approximants; the retroflex lateral is highly unusual among the world's languages.Spajić et al. (1994) Voiceless fricatives are allophonically voiced intervocalically in Toda. There are also the invariably vo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
