#unaspirated

[veiledinviolet]

i need to learn/practice unaspirated unvoiced plosives at the start of words

[cometchasr]

thailand really fucking loves gay dramas and i would be watching all of them if thai wasnt literally the most fucking irritating language on earth to learn

[dedalvs]

Random question:

So a while back I read something where someone was talking about how if English spelling were reformed so every sound had a unique symbol that we’d lose the “visual alliteration” of Cape Cod.

I cannot figure out what that means. Are those /k/ sounds not both [k]? The only difference I’ve been able to notice is a feeling of the airstream moving outward in “Cape” and inward in “Cod”, but I can’t tell if that’s due to vowel influence or what.

Let's back up. The "someone" who was talking about this was either (a) wrong, (b) uncooperatively pedantic, or (c) imagining a very specific, non-alphabetic spelling reform of English (e.g. spelling English with logographic or syllabic glyphs).

Assuming (b), the only way that English spelling could be reformed such that the C's in Cape Cod would be different is if the spelling reforming was as sensitive as a narrow IPA transcription. If that was the case, then there are some transcriptions of English that would transcribe the first as [kʰʲ] and the second as [kʰ]. This level is detail is phonologically important for some languages. English is not one of these. A sensible spelling reform would spell those the same, whether C (because all instances of [k] become C) or K (because all instances of [k] become K). A nonsensical spelling reform would actually spell aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stops different, but even then, these two would be the same, as they're both aspirated.

The airstream is the same for both (egressive). What you're feeling, I expect, is the very slight movement in tongue position as the initial [k], which is palatalized, moves backward to an unpalatalized position. The reason you feel this is the tongue doesn't have to do anything in between the onset of the first word and the onset of the second. The tongue gets in position for [e], and in this position you can pronounce [k] well enough, then with [p], your tongue doesn't have to do anything; the lips take care of it. This means your tongue body can remain in place. For "Cod", it moves back as the tongue prepares to pronounce [ɑ] (or whatever back vowel you have there). Notice also that the tongue body has to go down, the tongue tip retracting slightly to pronounce [ɑ]. That's all part of it.

Now, assuming (c), yeah, that's indeed going to happen. Consider Japanese katakana. This is how "Cape Cod" is spelled: ケープコッド /keːpu koddo/. The relevant characters—the ones that begin each syllable—are ケ /ke/ and コ /ko/. And, yeah, they're different, so you do lose the visual alliteration. However, what you lose in visual similarity you gain in economy. To write /ka, ke, ki, ko, ku/ in an alphabet you need 6 different letter forms and 10 total glyphs. To write the same thing in katakana you need 5 different letter forms and 5 total glyphs. Consider an old style text message, which had a hard character count. A syllabary allows you to fit more letters in than an alphabet because each character encodes more information. When it comes to sheer character count, then, the Japanese writing system is much more efficient when it comes to writing Japanese than the English Romanization is.

Of course, that's for Japanese. For English it doesn't make as much sense because of our overabundance of consonant clusters. Typing lava in an alphabet takes 4 characters; in a syllabary, it takes 2. Typing straps, though, requires 6 characters in an alphabet and 5 in a syllabary. That doesn't save you a lot space—and a syllabary like Japanese's throws in extra vowels that have to be there, even if they're not pronounced, destroying its efficiency by, essentially, adding extra noise to the signal. Returning to straps, you have 6 characters, and all elements are vocalized. In katakana, you'd have to do ストラプス /sutorapusu/. You save a character with ラ /ra/, but then you have a whole bunch of vowels you have to remember not to pronounce.

Long story short, if you were going to reform the English spelling system, I don't think a syllabary (or even an abugida) makes sense, and a logography would be quite a thing to drop on the unsuspecting populace, even if it would be more equitable. This is why I guessed that what you overheard wasn't (c) and was likely (b).

Anyway, that's my 2¢. Hope it helps.

[squeakygeeky]

Well I sure spent my lunchbreak typing up a reply to a post that doesn't exist anymore, but since I am finally learning the Thai alphabet for real this time, here's a quick bit on the names in Century of Love.

Vee and Wat/Wad ('วี' and 'วาด') have names that actually start with the same letter 'ว.' This makes a 'w' sound, but since there is no 'v' sound in Thai it's also used when transliterating English words into Thai, and sometimes 'v' instead of 'w' gets used when transliterating Thai into English. Letter nicknames are super common in Thai so I'm guessing his name comes from the English letter 'V' and that's why we consistently get 'Vee' instead of 'Wi', but see 'Wat/Wad' in some places but apparently in others 'Vat/Vad.'

Then for 'วาด' there's 'ด' which makes a 'd' sound at the beginning of a word but a 't' sound at the end, although it's not really the same as how a final 't' is pronounced in English.

(Future me here, back to clarify: In RTGS and most transliteration systems 't' is used for a sound that's unvoiced and unaspirated and it's not really 'd' or 't.' In my own notes I write it as 'dt.')

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Hate Speech

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 30, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 01, 2024

In addition to his comments about Russia in Ukraine, Trump said something else in Thursday’s CNN presentation that should be called out for its embrace of one of the darkest moments in U.S. history. 

In response to a question about what the presidential candidates would say to a Black voter disappointed with racial progress in the United States, President Joe Biden pointed out that, while there was still far to go, more Black businesses were started under his administration than at any other time in U.S. history, that black unemployment is at a historic low, and that the administration has relieved student debt, invested in historically Black colleges and universities, and is working to provide for childcare costs, all issues that affect Black Americans. 

In contrast, Trump said: “As sure as you’re sitting there, the fact is that his big kill on the Black people is the millions of people that he’s allowed to come in through the border. They're taking Black jobs now and it could be 18. It could be 19 and even 20 million people. They’re taking Black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs and you haven’t seen it yet, but you’re going to see something that’s going to be the worst in our history.” 

Trump was obviously falling back on the point he had prepared to rely on in this election: that immigration is destroying our country. He exaggerated the numbers of incoming migrants and warned that there is worse to come.

But what jumped out is his phrase: “They’re taking Black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs.” 

In U.S. history it has been commonplace for political leaders to try to garner power by warning their voters that some minority group is coming for their jobs. In the 1840s, Know-Nothings in Boston warned native-born voters about Irish immigrants; in 1862 and 1864, Democrats tried to whip up support by warning Irish immigrants that after Republicans fought to end enslavement, Black Americans would move north and take their jobs. In the 1870s, Californian Denis Kearney of the Workingman’s Party drew voters to his standard by warning that Chinese immigrants were taking their jobs and insisted: “The Chinese Must Go!” 

And those were just the early days.

But while they are related, there is a key difference between these racist appeals and the racism that Trump exhibited on Thursday. Politicians have often tried to get votes by warning that outsiders would draw from a pool of jobs that potential voters wanted themselves. Trump’s comments the other night drew on that racism but reached back much further to the idea that there are certain jobs that are “Black” or “Hispanic.”

This is not a new idea in the United States. 

“In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life,” South Carolina senator James Henry Hammond told his colleagues in 1858. “That is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill. Its requisites are vigor, docility, fidelity. Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement. It constitutes the very mud-sill of society and of political government; and you might as well attempt to build a house in the air, as to build either the one or the other, except on this mud-sill.” 

Capital produced by the labor of mudsills would concentrate in the hands of the upper class, who would use it efficiently and intelligently to develop society. Their guidance elevated those weak-minded but strong-muscled people in the mudsill class, who were “happy, content, unaspiring, and utterly incapable, from intellectual weakness, ever to give us any trouble by their aspirations.”

Southern leaders were smart enough to have designated a different race as their society’s mudsills, Hammond said, but in the North the “whole hireling class of manual laborers and ‘operatives,’ as you call them, are essentially slaves.” This created a political problem for northerners, for the majority of the population made up that lower class. “If they knew the tremendous secret, that the ballot-box is stronger than ‘an army with banners,’ and could combine, where would you be?” Hammond asked his colleagues who insisted that all people were created equal. “Your society would be reconstructed, your government overthrown, your property divided.” 

The only true way to look at the world was to understand that some people were better than others and had the right and maybe the duty, to rule. “I repudiate, as ridiculously absurd, that much-lauded but nowhere accredited dogma of Mr. Jefferson, that ‘all men are born equal’” Hammond wrote, and it was on this theory that some people are better than others that southern enslavers based their proposed new nation. 

“Our new government is founded…upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical and moral truth,” Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy, told supporters. 

Not everyone agreed. For his part, rising politician Abraham Lincoln stood on the Declaration of Independence. Months after Hammond’s speech, Lincoln addressed German immigrants in Chicago. Arguments that some races are “inferior,” he said, would “rub out the sentiment of liberty in the country, and…transform this Government into a government of some other form.” The idea that it is beneficial for some people to be dominated by others, he said, is the argument “that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world…. Turn in whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent.” 

According to the mudsill theory, he said the following year, “a blind horse upon a tread-mill, is a perfect illustration of what a laborer should be—all the better for being blind, that he could not tread out of place, or kick understandingly. According to that theory, the education of laborers, is not only useless, but pernicious, and dangerous.” He disagreed. “[T]here is not, of necessity, any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life.”

He went on to tie the mudsill theory to the larger principles of the United States. “I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it, where will it stop,” he said. “If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out!” To cries of “No, no,” he concluded to cheers: “Let us stick to it then. Let us stand firmly by it.” 

One hundred and sixty-six years later, Black and Hispanic social media users have answered Trump’s statement about “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs” with photos of themselves in highly skilled professional positions. But while they did so with good humor, they were illustrating for the modern world the principle Lincoln articulated: in the United States there should be no such thing as “Black jobs” or “Hispanic jobs.” 

Such a construction directly contradicts the principles of the Declaration of Independence and ignores the victory of the United States in the Civil War. Anyone who sees the world through such a lens is on the wrong side of history. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[bugsb1te]

Te Reo Māori rambles ~

Kia ora, quick disclaimer! I'm still sort of new learning Te Reo Māori! (Teh-*r*eh-awe maah-*r*ee: the māori language) I only started my classes in term 1 and its term 2 currently. (a term is half of a semester, there are 4 terms in a nz school year) so yea! If you happen to know more than me and or spot a mistake I make when posting in or about Te Reo Māori, please correct me! Te Reo Pākehā (teh-*r*eh-awe paah-keh-haa: the English language) is my first language so I'm fluent in that :)

Also Te Reo Māori is kinda like a spinterest atm lmaoo im so excited about hearing the language being spoken and seeing it written around the country and im excited to learn!! Yayy!! Learning the language and Te Ao Māori (Māori ways/culture/traditions) helps me feel more connected to my Māori whakapapa aswell! (fuhck-ah-puh-puh: ancestors/ancestry) I am Māori, it doesn't matter if you're white or mixed. Having Māori ancestry = Māori. Period. In Māori culture we dont believe in blood quantums!!! so im what people call a "White Māori"

anyways onto the yapping!!!!!!

Key:

• (small brackets) = pronounciation and/or meaning

• *r/t/ng inside asterisks* = special māori sounds.

• bold = kupu Māori (maori words)

~

Fun fact: the p sound is very soft! Like the p in "poo" NOT like the p in "keep" does that make sense? another super fun fact: all kupu Māori (cooh-pooh maoh-*r*ee: māori words) end in vowel sounds and never consonants!

Māori vowel pronounciation:

a - "ahh" as in: car, star, bar, guitar, far

e - "eh" as in: lego, leg, peg, said, head

i - "ee" as in: key, bee, see, reach, scream

o - "aw" as in: saw, claw, maw, jaw, NOT as in "oh/low/so/no"!! This is the most abused vowel by English speakers!

u - "ooh" as in: poo, moo, goo, soon, lose, choose, move, room

Digraphs:

Ng - "ng" as in: song, long, pong, singer, rung NOT as in: finger, linger

Wh - "f/ph" as in: phone, food, few, far, physical, philosophy, phile. NOT as in: who, where, when, what, whether, why, while .

note: different Māori dialects sometimes pronounce this sound as a "w". eg: lots of people pronounce "whanganui" as "wanganui" (fah-*ng*ah-noo-ee/wah-*ng*ah-noo-ee) For other sounds: For "R" focus on rolling your 'r' sounds, It's a soft rolled 'r' (NOT as strongly rolled as how Spanish speakers would roll theirs).  the sound you should aim for is somewhere in between an English ‘D’ and 'L'. e.g. like the 'dd' in judder, or the 'tt' in a kiwi accent for 'butter'. You should feel your tongue tip touching near the backof the roof of your mouth. T is pronounced kinda like a sharp "d", but 't' pronunciation varies depending on which vowel appears after it. When succeeded by an ‘a’, ‘e’ or ‘o’, it’s unaspirated (softer, closer to an English 'd'). When followed by an ‘i’ or ‘u’, it is an aspirated 't' (sharper, closer to an English 't'). Hope that makes sense!!!

Tohutō vowels:

(Special vowels sounds written with tohutō (macrons) on them)

ā - exaggerate and deepen the regular māori "a" sound and make sure it stands out from the other vowels! But not too much or you'll look like a fool lmaoo X3 eg: when pronouncing the sound, open your throat and lower the back of your tongue. And say "ah". It should sound different to normally saying "ah". another example is that "tohutō" is pronounced "toh-who-taww" not "toh-who-toh" !!

ē - same thing ^ but with "e"

ī - ^

ō - ^

ū - ^

Sentences !

(Please correct me if I make mistakes or worded the sentence incorrectly)

- " i tēnei ata i whakarongo ahau ki te ngā manu " - this morning I listened to the birds

pronounced: ee tehh-nae ah-tah ee fuck-ah-*r*awh-*ng*-awe uh-hoe key teh *ng*aahh munooh

- "Kei te pēhea koe?" - how are you?

pronounced: Kay teh pehh-heeya kweh

- " Kei te ngenge ahau " - I am sleepy/tired

Pronounced: Kay teh *ng*eh-*ng*eh ahh-hoe

- " Kua haere ahau ki te wharepaku " - I went to the toilet/bathroom

Pronounced: kooh-uh hai-*r*eh ah-hoe key teh fuh-*r*eh-pahk-oo

Ok im done yapping have a good day!!! Ka kite!!

[xuexishijian]

Articulatory Phonetics - 调音语音学

字音 zǐyīn - (n.) consonant (also 福音 fǔyīn)

调音部位diàoyīnbùwèi - (n.) place of articulation (also 发音部位)

双唇音 shuāngchúnyīn - (n.) bilabial sound

唇齿音/齿唇音 chúnchǐyīn/chǐchúnyīn - (n.) labiodental sound

齿音 chǐyīn - (n.) dental sound

齿龈音 chǐyínyīn - (n.) alveolar sound

龈腭音 yín'èyīn - (n.) alveolo-palatal sound

卷舌音 juǎnshéyīn - (n.) retroflex sound

腭音 èyīn - (n.) palatal sound

软腭音 ruǎn'èyīn - (n.) velar sound

小舌音 xiǎoshéyīn - (n.) uvular sound

咽音 yānyīn - (n.) pharyngeal sound

声门音/喉音 shēngményīn/hóuyīn - (n.) glottal sound

调音方法 diàoyīnfāngfǎ - (n.) manner of articulation

阻碍音 zǔ'àiyīn - (n.) obstruent

塞音 sèyīn - (n.) stop, plosive

擦音 cāyīn - (n.) fricative

咝音 sīyīn - (n.) sibilant

塞擦音 sècāyīn - (n.) affricate

响音 xiǎngyīn - (n.) sonorant

鼻音 bíyīn - (n.) nasal

流音 liúyīn - (n.) liquid

边音 biānyīn - (n.) lateral

近音 jìnyīn - (n.) approximant

半元音bànyuányīn - (n.) semivowel, glide

颤音 chànyīn - (n.) trill

弹音 tányīn - (n.) tap

闪音 shǎnyīn - (n.) flap

发声态 fāshēngtài - (n.) phonation

清音 qīngyīn - (n.) voiceless sound

浊音 zhuóyīn (n.) voiced sound

送气音 sòngqìyīn - (n.) aspirated sound

不送气音 búsòngqìyīn - (n.) unaspirated sound (also 非送气音)

发声起始时间 fāshēngqǐshǐshíjiān - (n.) voice-onset time (VOT)

元音 yuányīn - (n.) vowel

元音高度 yuányīn gāodù - (n.) vowel height

元音舌位 yuányīn shéwèi - (n.) vowel backness

前元音 qiányuányīn - (n.) front vowel

央元音 yāngyuányīn - (n.) central vowel

后元音 hòuyuányīn - (n.) back vowel

闭元音 bìyuányīn - (n.) close vowel

次闭元音 cìbìyuányīn - (n.) near-close vowel

半闭元音 bànbìyuányīn - (n.) close-mid vowel

中元音 zhōngyuányīn - (n.) mid vowel

半开元音 bànkāiyuányīn - (n.) open-mid vowel

次开元音 cìkāiyuányīn - (n.) near-open vowel

开元音 kāiyuányīn - (n.) open vowel

圆唇元音 yuánchúnyuányīn- (n.) rounded vowel

不圆唇元音 bùyuánchúnyuányīn - (n.) unrounded vowel

鼻化元音 bíhuāyuányīn - (n.) nasal vowel

声调/声 shēngdiào/shēng - (n.) tone

阴平声 yīnpíngshēng - (n.) high level tone

阳平声 yángpíngshēng - (n.) rising tone

上声 shǎngshēng (also shàngshēng) - (n.) falling-rising tone

去声 qùshēng - (n.) falling tone

轻声 qīngshēng - (n.) neutral tone

声道 shēngdào - (n.) vocal tract

发音器官 fāyīnqìguān - (n.) articulators, speech organs

肺脏 fèizàng - (n.) lungs

喉 hóu - (n.) larynx

声带 shēngdài - (n.) vocal folds

振动 zhèndòng - (v.) vibrate

口腔 kǒuqiāng - (n.) oral cavity

颚 è - (n.) jaw

鼻腔 bíqiāng - (n.) nasal cavity

舌根 shégēn - (n.) tongue root

舌面 shémiàn - (n.) tongue body (dorsum) (also 舌背）

舌尖 shéjiān - (n.) tongue tip

We can also divide the tongue like this: 舌前部，舌中部，舌后部

气���机制 qìliújīzhì - (n.) airstream mechanism

外呼音 wàihūyīn - (n.) egressive sound

内吸音 nèixīyīn - (n.) ingressive sound

肺部外呼音 fèibùwàihūyīn - (n.) pulmonic egressive sound

声门外呼音 shēngménwàihūyīn - (n.) glottalic egressive sound

挤喉音 jǐhóuyīn - (n.) ejective consonant

声门内吸音 shēngménnèixīyīn - (n.) glottalic ingressive sound

内爆音 nèibàoyīn - (n.) implosive consonant

舌内吸音 shénèixīyīn - (n.) lingual (velaric) ingressive sound

搭嘴音 dāzuǐyīn - (n.) click consonant

声源-滤波器理论 shēngyuán-lǜbōqì lǐlùn - (n.) source-filter theory

[magnetictapedatastorage]

A flame that is held in front of the lips while those words are spoken flickers more for the aspirated nitrate than for the unaspirated night rate.

Wikipedia: Allophone

[galacticsand]

Movelang #001 - Phonology and Sound System

Nophhurra, and hello again everyone! It's time for another post showing off my experimental conlang, Movelang! This time around, I'll be going over Movelang's sound system: the consonants and vowels used, along with a currently loosely-defined syllable structure, as well as allophony!

Admittedly, the Phonology has been one of the aspects of Movelang which has been altered several times over, and has gone through several iterations before reaching the point at which it exists in the present. Since the emphasis for this conlang was moreso on grammar than on the phonoaesthetic, I had largely loosely defined it at the start, with only a vague idea of what Movelang would sound like. At the start, I took a lot of inspiration from the Coptic Language, as well as several African and Caucasian Languages. Later on as I began being more deterministic about the phonetic inventory of the language, it did change from this original vision in several ways, but I ended up ultimately with something I really like!

(My charts tend to prioritize neatness over exactness, so if there's a sound somewhere that doesn't exactly describe it completely correctly, please don't fight me 😭)

Phonemically, the consonant inventory consists of 2 nasals, 15 plosives, 4 fricatives, 2 liquids, and 1 tap. The plosives are split three ways by mode of articulation, where 5 stops are unaspirated: /p t t͡ɕ k q/, 5 stops are aspirated: /pʰ tʰ t͡ɕʰ kʰ qʰ/, and 5 are voiced: /b d d͡ʑ g ɢ/. Each mode of articulations contains a labial, dento-alveolar, palatal, velar, and uvular stop respectively. This was a choice inspired by both Ancient Greek, as well as the Coptic and Caucasian influence I mentioned earlier, and in an earlier version of the phonology, the palatal affricates were instead alveolar affricates: /t͡s t͡sʰ d͡z/. Accompanying the stops are 4 fricatives that roughly match 4/5 of the same manners of articulation: /s ɕ x ħ/. These were selected mainly for that reason, that they lie in the same POA as their stop counterparts, but I decided to throw in an oddball for the fricative furthest towards the back of the mouth. Originally, this was /h/ phonemically, but I was intrigued by Maltese's presence of /ħ/ as the sole voiceless fricative closest to the back of the mouth, so I decided to do this for Movelang, and I do love how it sounds! I personally think /x/ and /ħ/ pair nicely with each other! The Approximants and Nasals then weren't that hard to reckon, I simply filled in the gaps in the chart respectively. When I got to my /l/ sound though, I decided to make this a little bit different as well, and follow the lead of Mongolian, and make it /ɮ/ instead. I also made the decision to omit /w/ or any similar sound, since I have a habit of using this sound a lot whenever I make new sound systems, as a bit of a monkey-wrench to try and make myself work with.

For Allophony, most of this deals with the pronunciation of consonants. There are 3 major rules that come into effect when pronouncing consonants in particular places within a word. First, the nasals, /m n/, devoice to /m̥ n̥/ whenever they are preceded by a syllable that has an aspirated plosive in the coda, any of /pʰ tʰ t͡ɕʰ kʰ qʰ/. Secondly, /ɮ/ may devoice to /ɬ/ when next to any voiceless sound: a voiceless plosive or fricative. Finally, the alveolar tap /ɾ/ becomes trilled /r/ when it is geminated. These rules as you'll notice mostly depend on a sound's locale within a syllable, which I'll explain in greater detail when discussing syllable structure...

As for the vowels, these are quite simple. Movelang consists of seven phonemic vowels, which compliment the front and the back of the mouth. Movelang contains no phonemic length, tone, nasality, or anything else that would affect vowel quality in this way, at least phonemically, and only has these 7 plain oral vowels. There are 3 front vowels: /ɛ e i/, all of which are unrounded, and 4 back vowels: /ɑ ɔ o u/, all of which are rounded, except for the open back vowel.

In terms of vowel allophony, nothing really major happens to vowels. The only major rule which takes place with vowels, is that /ɑ/ goes to /a/ when near a palatal sound.

Additionally, the syllable shape in Movelang is pretty straightforward, it's pretty much CVC, but with a few additional caveats. The main difference, is that /j/ cannot be a coda consonant, which is reflected by the use of D for the coda consonant in my syllable shape notation, and additionally, only 6 consonants can end a word: /m t k q s r/, which is reflected by the use of K for a word-final coda consonant.

In addition to these tactical features, hiatus is permitted in Movelang, meaning that the onset consonant in syllables is optional even word-internally, and when this happens, the parallel vowels flow together smoothly, rather than having some epenthetic consonant placed between them, like a glottal stop. Gemination also happens quite frequently in Movelang, especially in compounds, and it is under these circumstances when /j/ technically can appear in the coda of a syllable, but only as a part of a geminate /j:/.

=-=-=-=

Alright! Well, that's pretty much it for phonology, at this point I'm going to try and stick to this phonology and not impulsively change it again, but knowing me, I can't make any promises XD. I hope you all enjoyed this look at the sound system! I look forward to posting some lexical samples in the next post, with these sounds intact, where I'll be showing you Movelang's class system in action! More on that later of course... Until then, I look forward to it, and I hope you all enjoyed this post! If you all have any questions, feel free to leave me a comment, or an ask!

[zoeyslament]

Anagrams of ‘Poor Guy’s Head Is Spinning

dinosaurs hyping pigeons

dipping gayness honouris

doge hypnosis unaspiring

doughy piano springiness

penis rhapsodising young

isopods spraying unhinge

anhydrous pigeon pissing

and my personal favourite:

Dionysus enrages hippos

[philologique]

a few northern thai language resources

@lurkingteapot here is a download link for three articles on northern thai i was able to pull up today and that you may find interesting!

Central Thai and Northern Thai: Linguistic and Attitudinal Study, by Preeya Nokaeo, is a linguistics Ph.D. dissertation from 1989 by a northern thai visiting scholar at UT Austin, which confirmed the aspiration differences at pp. 65-66 (I haven’t read the tone section closely).

Notes on Some Phonological Aspects of Northern Thai, by Makio Katsura, is a 1969 journal article based on a series of interviews conducted from 1964-65. the article characterizes the standard thai mid-class consonants as mid-class in Northern Thai (“Middle Series”), but also notes:

The Middle Series splits into two groups, that is, voiceless unaspirated stops, /p, t, c, k/ and voiced stops plus a glottal stop/constriction […]. The inherent tone of the former is low-rising, thus falling together with the High Series, while that inherent in the latter group is mid-rising or mid-level. The tone inherent in the Low Series falls together with the latter group of the Middle Series, that is, mid-rise or mid-level. (Katsura, 154)

That seems to be the case across each of the four dialects Katsura studied—see kaa ('crow', กา) at p. 157.

i haven’t given it a ton of thought, but if the tone rules are identical i'm not convinced there’s a productive distinction between “voiceless Middle Series” and HC consonants. i also wonder how the findings described here might have changed in the last 60 years.

and on that note—The study of the Northern Thai dialect: Phonetic variations of Sao Wa sub-variant in Chiang Rai province, by Natchanun Sanitdee, is a short paper from april 2023 examining phonetic differences between the Sao Wa sub-subdialect and the standard Chiang Rai subdialect of Northern Thai

unfortunately my biggest resource on tai languages until today has been english-language wikipedia articles and thai-language wiktionary entries, which is *far* from a rigorous academic exercise!! that said, i think it's a decent—and above all, accessible—place to start. if you're interested, what i initially found re pha pan dao/ผาพันดาว/ผาปันดาว is under the cut:

With ผาปันดาว I noticed inconsistent pronunciation of the village's name in 1000 Stars. then the spelling on the sign gave me a hypothesis about different aspiration distinctions, and then i checked that by going to the wikipedia article for Northern Thai Language (which is well-written, if poorly cited) and searching for “aspira--”, followed by checking the thai wiktionary entry for ปัน. that also explains why kam mueang itself is alternately written as คำเมือง and กำเมือง

(also note the distinction between ค and ฅ!! i cannot for the life of me remember where i read the the latter has been reconstructed as a voiced velar fricative in proto-tai, but i think it's noteworthy that its obsolescence in the written language was presumably based on its apparent redundancy in central thai alone)

from the wikipedia article:

from thai wiktionary:

tones:

this multicolored tone chart in the wikipedia article indicates that what we think of mid-class consonants in standard/central thai follow different tone rules in northern thai (at least in chiang mai) based on voicing, with the VL consonants following northern HC rules (low-rising in unmarked live syllables and dead syllables with a short vowel, low in dead syllables with a long vowel).

[starcaptainslangs]

Day 12 - Consonants pt 3

Today's prompt is about considering things like affricates and non-pulmonic plosives. I've decided to drop the voicing distinction in the plosives and instead have an aspirated/unaspirated distinction.

I am gonna evolve some stuff with the unaspirated plosives so I want to leave them in for now. I decided to do the orthography for the unaspirated plosives as [b d g qh] with [qh] for /qʰ/. We'll see how long that lasts lol.

Anyway that's it for today! Tomorrow is vowels, I think! Yay! I have some evil ideas (sinister even) to implement there.

[redrockbutch]

Fools: I hate it when writers say a character 'popped the p' in a word, there's no way not to do that!

Me, sipping tap water: heh... this guy doesn't know about unaspirated plosives.... amateur....

[edensstudylounge]

learning chinese: day one

NOT PROFESSIONAL! NOTES ARE TO HELP ME LEARN!

CONTENTS

basic chinese characters

learning about pinyin

pronounciations of initials (consonants only)

tone contours

greeting, asking for ones name + telling your own

¹BASIC CHINESE CHARACTERS

口 kǒu

耳 ěr

目 mù

日 rì

月 yuè

火 huǒ

羊 yáng

鸟 niǎo

免 tù

木 nù

禾 hé

竹 zhú

²PINYIN represents pronounciation of each character,

26 English letters, "v" used for foreign

names, rest (25) used for characters

_consonants

b [p] unaspirated p

p [p'] strongly aspirated p

m [m] as in English

f [f] as in English

d [t] unaspirated t

t [t'] strongly aspirated t

n [n] as in English

l [l] as in English

g [k] unaspirated k

k [k'] strongly aspirated k

h [ch] as in German

j [dshi] unaspirated "chy"-sound, as in German

q [tshi] aspirated "chy"-sound

x [shi] as in German

zh [dj] soft ch, as in English

ch [tshr] "chy"-sound, soft r instead of i / y

sh [sch] as in German

r [sh] soft, close to English j, "sh"-sound

z [ds] as in English

c [ts'] as in English

s [s] usual s

w [w] loosely aspirated

y [j] as in German

³TONE CONTOURS

tone 1 ex. mā

tone 2 ex. má

tone 3 ex. mǎ

tone 4 ex. mà

(the picture visualization helped me lots)

GREETING, ASKING FOR NAMES AND TELLING YOUR OWN

"MEETING SOMEONE FOR THE FIRST TIME"

Nǐ haǒ. literally means "you good", rarely used among

friends and family

Nǐ jiào shénme míngzi? literally means "you call what

name?"

Wǒ jiào... "my name is.." answer to question above

Hěn gāoxìng rènshi nǐ. literally means "very happy to

know you", said after

introducing yourself

total study time: 3 hours

where i learn: coursera (hsk course 1-6)

[wellconstructedsentences]

The love of fame seems natural to every thing that breathes; even the notoriety of infamy has been thought more desirable than the oblivious shade of unaspiring innocence. Else how can we account for several sad dogs of the human race, of both sexes, publishing their disgraceful memoirs; and thus inviting that reprobation which they might have escaped, had they kept their secrets to themselves?

Memoirs of Bob, The Spotted Terrier

[stumpyjoepete]

More pictures from that bookstore. When J is browsing through novels and academically relevant books at a bookstore, I usually pass the time looking at cookbooks and language-learning books. It's always interesting to see the wacky romanizations people come up with depending on the target audience. (Or wacky katakanizations as the case may be.)

First saw this book teaching Hawai'ian:

I really hope that Japanese tourists are not under the impression that it is necessary or even helpful to study Hawai'ian before going there.

Here's a bit from a book on Thai:

Interesting approach towards representing final consonants. Miniature ン to indicate it doesn't affect syllable length. Miniature ツ to indicate a closed syllable (this indicates a geminated following consonant in Japanese), with other miniature katakana after it to indicate which final stop it is. They totally gave up on representing the "unvoiced unaspirated" vs "unvoiced aspirated" distinction in kana though, leaving that in romanization only (this is a pattern throughout the books I flipped through).

This Shanghainese kana system has some similarities:

Final glottal stops are represented with a miniature ツ, but they also represent glides with leading miniature kana.

Is this really a good way to teach Japanese people to pronounce Shanghainese correctly? (勿是) What were they thinking? (勿晓得)

There is a really interesting page attempting to explain the pitch accent tone system in Shanghainese. (This is unique among Chinese languages, afaik. Instead of individual morphemes having a tonal contour, words only have a single contour that comes from whatever the contour would be for the initial morpheme said in isolation.)

From the cover of one of these books:

I thought that 2011 was the last time I would ever have to think about the world expo or the stupid toothpaste man.