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Linguo-pulmonic
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 hav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contour (linguistics)
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 vow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; , and , pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel ( fricatives); and and , which have air flowing through the nose ( nasals). Contrasting with consonants are vowels. Since the number of speech sounds in the world's languages is much greater than the number of letters in any one alphabet, linguists have devised systems such as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to assign a unique and unambiguous symbol to each attested consonant. The English alphabet has fewer consonant letters than the English language has consonant sounds, so digraphs like , , , and are used to extend the alphabet, though some letters and digraphs represent more than one consonant. For example ... [...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] |
Alveolar Click
The alveolar or postalveolar clicks are a family of click consonants found only in Africa and in the Damin ritual jargon of Australia. The tongue is more or less concave (depending on the language), and is pulled down rather than back as in the palatal clicks, making a hollower sound than those consonants. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the place of articulation of these sounds is . The symbol is not an exclamation mark in origin, but rather a vertical bar with a subscript dot, the dot being the old diacritic for retroflex consonants. Prior to 1989, (stretched c) was the IPA letter for the alveolar clicks, and this is still preferred by some phoneticians. The tail of may be the tail of retroflex consonants in the IPA, and thus analogous to the underdot of . Either letter may be combined with a second letter to indicate the manner of articulation, though this is commonly omitted for tenuis clicks. In official IPA transcription, the click ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pulmonic Airstream
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 prod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lingual Airstream
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] |
Sonorant
In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels are sonorants, as are nasals like and , liquids like and , and semivowels like and . This set of sounds contrasts with the obstruents ( stops, affricates and fricatives). For some authors, only the term ''resonant'' is used with this broader meaning, while ''sonorant'' is restricted to consonants, referring to nasals and liquids but not vocoids (vowels and semivowels). Types Whereas obstruents are frequently voiceless, sonorants are almost always voiced. A typical sonorant consonant inventory found in many languages comprises the following: two nasals , two semivowels , and two liquids . In the sonority hierarchy, all sounds higher than fricatives are sonorants. They can therefore form the nucleus of a syllable in languages that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Obstruent
An obstruent () is a speech sound such as , , or that is formed by ''obstructing'' airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well as consonants. Subclasses Obstruents are subdivided into plosives (oral stops), such as , with complete occlusion of the vocal tract, often followed by a release burst; fricatives, such as , with limited closure, not stopping airflow but making it turbulent; and affricates, which begin with complete occlusion but then release into a fricative-like release, such as .Zsiga, Elizabeth. ''The Sounds of Language: An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology''. Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. Voicing Obstruents are often prototypically voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ubykh Language
Ubykh or Päkhy was a Northwest Caucasian language once spoken by the Ubykh tribe of Circassians who originally lived along the eastern coast of the Black Sea before being deported ''en masse'' to Turkey in the Circassian genocide. The Ubykh language was ergative and polysynthetic, with a high degree of agglutination, with polypersonal verbal agreement and a very large number of distinct consonants but only two phonemically distinct vowels. With around eighty consonants, it had one of the largest inventories of consonants in the world, and the largest number for any language without clicks. The name Ubykh is derived from (), its name in the Adyghe language. It is known in linguistic literature by many names: variants of Ubykh, such as ''Ubikh'', (French); and its Germanised variant (from Ubykh ). Major features Ubykh is distinguished by the following features, some of which are shared with other Northwest Caucasian languages: * It is ergative, making no syntacti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taa Language
Taa , also known as ǃXóõ (also spelled ǃKhong and ǃXoon; ), is a Tuu languages, 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 ǂʼAmkoe language, West ǂʼAmkoe an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Consonant Inventory
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west of England, the sound patterns (''sin'') and (''sing'') are two separate words that are distinguished by the substitution of one phoneme, , for another phoneme, . Two words like this that differ in meaning through the contrast of a single phoneme form a ''minimal pair''. If, in another language, any two sequences differing only by pronunciation of the final sounds or are perceived as being the same in meaning, then these two sounds are interpreted as phonetic variants of a single phoneme in that language. Phonemes that are established by the use of minimal pairs, such as ''tap'' vs ''tab'' or ''pat'' vs ''bat'', are written between slashes: , . To show pronunciation, linguists use square brackets: (indicating an aspirated ''p'' in ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
