Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: lateral fricative (was: Láadan and woman's speak)

From:DOUGLAS KOLLER <laokou@...>
Date:Tuesday, May 23, 2000, 2:15
From: "Raymond Brown"

> At 2:18 pm -0500 21/5/00, Matt Pearson wrote: > >Ray Brown wrote:
> >>Herman Miller replied: > >>>I've always liked the sound of lateral fricatives. I used a voiceless > >>>*palatal* lateral fricative in one of my Elvish languages. > >> > >>To which at 2:01 pm -0500 20/5/00, Matt Pearson replied: > >>>Tokana also has this sound. Actually, it's more of a postalveolar > >>>lateral fricative (same point of articulation as English /S/). > >> > >>That's the Welsh "ll" which I've also heard in Zulu & Xhosa (two of the > >>Nguni languages). But I think that Herman is saying he also used a
palatal
> >>variety, not that the Welsh one is palatal (which it most certainly
isn't). Sorry, I lost the original thread. I speak no Welsh, Zulu, or Xhosa. When I tried producing the sound described in the Laádan inventory, I got what sounded like a cat hiss, which is certainly not pleasant to the ear (and wasn't that the desired effect?), sounds aggressive and confrontational (adding to the unpleasantness), and _not_ what I imagine the Welsh "ll" to be at all. I could imagine the hissing-cat / unpleasant-female-perspective link easily since this is quite traditional, but I really don't know if this is what Elgin had in mind, either consciously or unconsciously. Kou