Phonology: Crash Course Linguistics #10
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Date: 2022-04-04
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Comments and reviews: 10
Jared
I did a quick look into aspiration vs voicing in plosives to see how different languages distinguish them - In addition to the 2-way combo system English has got, you got languages that distinguish with voicing alone (like French, Dutch, and Greek, languages that distinguish aspiration alone (like Mandarin and Icelandic) languages that don't distinguish either (like Hawaiian an Cherooke, languages with a three-way distinction between aspirated voiceless, unaspirated voiceless, and voiced (like Punjabi, Eastern Armenian and Wu, and then you have the mindnumbing 4-way distinction between unaspirated voiceless, aspirated voiceless, unaspirated voiced, and the ever-so-rare _aspirated voiced_ system that is common among many Indian Languages in the Indo-Aryan branch.
(Even a short read on some Wikipedia articles reveals that this is all way more complicated, there are other ways to change sounds beyond this leading to all kinds of allophones - like -unaspirated voiced- plosives usually aren't actually unaspirated, they're murmured)
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I did a quick look into aspiration vs voicing in plosives to see how different languages distinguish them - In addition to the 2-way combo system English has got, you got languages that distinguish with voicing alone (like French, Dutch, and Greek, languages that distinguish aspiration alone (like Mandarin and Icelandic) languages that don't distinguish either (like Hawaiian an Cherooke, languages with a three-way distinction between aspirated voiceless, unaspirated voiceless, and voiced (like Punjabi, Eastern Armenian and Wu, and then you have the mindnumbing 4-way distinction between unaspirated voiceless, aspirated voiceless, unaspirated voiced, and the ever-so-rare _aspirated voiced_ system that is common among many Indian Languages in the Indo-Aryan branch.
(Even a short read on some Wikipedia articles reveals that this is all way more complicated, there are other ways to change sounds beyond this leading to all kinds of allophones - like -unaspirated voiced- plosives usually aren't actually unaspirated, they're murmured)
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Ole
In my language (Danish, there is no meaningful distinction between a voiced s-sound and an unvoiced one. To this day I simply cannot hear the difference - unless some times if it is deliberately exaggerated. This is problematic when an American is spelling a word with a C or a Z, where that is the only distinction. I know what the difference is. I can reproduce the difference in my own speech, but I don't have an intuitive sense of which is correct from listening to the speech of others, so I generally just use the unvoiced sound.
In the other direction, I have also noticed a similar problem. The Danish language has some vowel sounds that do not exist in the English language. Particularly noticable for me, the typical Danish o has a sound that English speakers generally can't replicate correctly. In other words, I have never met someone whose first language is English who could pronounce my first name.
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In my language (Danish, there is no meaningful distinction between a voiced s-sound and an unvoiced one. To this day I simply cannot hear the difference - unless some times if it is deliberately exaggerated. This is problematic when an American is spelling a word with a C or a Z, where that is the only distinction. I know what the difference is. I can reproduce the difference in my own speech, but I don't have an intuitive sense of which is correct from listening to the speech of others, so I generally just use the unvoiced sound.
In the other direction, I have also noticed a similar problem. The Danish language has some vowel sounds that do not exist in the English language. Particularly noticable for me, the typical Danish o has a sound that English speakers generally can't replicate correctly. In other words, I have never met someone whose first language is English who could pronounce my first name.
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Tristan
Brilliant episode. This is one of my specific, favourite topics of linguistics. But you ought to be a little more cautious with claiming -always- with linguistics. Both the aspirated and unaspirated version appear at both the beginnings and ends of words in English, which can depending on a number of linguistic devices that might be used. It's obviously important to recognize and note the most typical usage, but pushing into -always- territory can give people the wrong impression of how language _actually_ behaves, like the common claim about adjective order, which is another that's often cited as an -always- rule (and a pet peeve that it is. It's worth introducing the caveat that these rules, however common, are rarely actually -always-. Because that's what makes language so _interesting. _
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Brilliant episode. This is one of my specific, favourite topics of linguistics. But you ought to be a little more cautious with claiming -always- with linguistics. Both the aspirated and unaspirated version appear at both the beginnings and ends of words in English, which can depending on a number of linguistic devices that might be used. It's obviously important to recognize and note the most typical usage, but pushing into -always- territory can give people the wrong impression of how language _actually_ behaves, like the common claim about adjective order, which is another that's often cited as an -always- rule (and a pet peeve that it is. It's worth introducing the caveat that these rules, however common, are rarely actually -always-. Because that's what makes language so _interesting. _
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TheNovelNovelist
Hmm, but even when a difference in sound makes a difference in meaning, such as in the case of -rabid- and -rabbit, - it's not necessarily a guarantee that speakers won't simply treats the words as homophones rather than observing the distinction. Such as in the English, -pen- and -pin. - Lots of English speakers, myself included, don't even attempt to say those words differently even though they have different meanings and COULD be said differently to improve clarity.
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Hmm, but even when a difference in sound makes a difference in meaning, such as in the case of -rabid- and -rabbit, - it's not necessarily a guarantee that speakers won't simply treats the words as homophones rather than observing the distinction. Such as in the English, -pen- and -pin. - Lots of English speakers, myself included, don't even attempt to say those words differently even though they have different meanings and COULD be said differently to improve clarity.
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Warrick
I'm still confused on the way she pronounces the unaspirated -t- still sounds aspirated to me, just with less emphasis on the -puff of air-. Anyone else feels this way? I'm used to the unaspirated -t- as in spanish tener, chinese - and indonesian tangan, and i find that her unaspirated t sounds different than all of them. Is it that the unaspirated t can be pronounced two different ways?
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I'm still confused on the way she pronounces the unaspirated -t- still sounds aspirated to me, just with less emphasis on the -puff of air-. Anyone else feels this way? I'm used to the unaspirated -t- as in spanish tener, chinese - and indonesian tangan, and i find that her unaspirated t sounds different than all of them. Is it that the unaspirated t can be pronounced two different ways?
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Figgy5119
Another fun metathesis example in English is the wap. When there was a whole hive of them, they were said as plural, waps. But it underwent metathesis and became wasp. But now that sounds singular again because the s isn't at the end, so to make it plural we have to say wasps, which is pretty tough for a lot of people, particularly non-native speakers.
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Another fun metathesis example in English is the wap. When there was a whole hive of them, they were said as plural, waps. But it underwent metathesis and became wasp. But now that sounds singular again because the s isn't at the end, so to make it plural we have to say wasps, which is pretty tough for a lot of people, particularly non-native speakers.
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DeborahFishburn
Before you publish these videos, can you please watch them with sub titles (closed captions) on, in both full screen and non full screen mode? You put up all these graphics and pieces of information that are not visible to your viewers, because the subtitles are sitting over the top of that section of the screen.
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Before you publish these videos, can you please watch them with sub titles (closed captions) on, in both full screen and non full screen mode? You put up all these graphics and pieces of information that are not visible to your viewers, because the subtitles are sitting over the top of that section of the screen.
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Saber
And then you get into word stress which, as a french speaker, i didnt even know was a thing. Spent years wondering why i never sounded quite right speaking english even when i had the right pronounciation: ')
also couldn't really hear the difference between aspirated and unaspirated in the video so that was interesting
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And then you get into word stress which, as a french speaker, i didnt even know was a thing. Spent years wondering why i never sounded quite right speaking english even when i had the right pronounciation: ')
also couldn't really hear the difference between aspirated and unaspirated in the video so that was interesting
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Brian
I still wish the examples were given by native speakers or signers of the languages in question whenever possible. It would have been helpful for viewers to actually hear Nepali tal with an unaspirated t so that they could tell what it sounds like when it doesn't follow s.
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I still wish the examples were given by native speakers or signers of the languages in question whenever possible. It would have been helpful for viewers to actually hear Nepali tal with an unaspirated t so that they could tell what it sounds like when it doesn't follow s.
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Heewon
How is Newton's universal law of gravity proved to be a universal law - meaning it is true in any and every part of this universe - without Newton himself travelling to all parts of universe to verify?
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How is Newton's universal law of gravity proved to be a universal law - meaning it is true in any and every part of this universe - without Newton himself travelling to all parts of universe to verify?
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