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Re: linguolabials (was: Re: Hell hath no Fury)

From:Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>
Date:Thursday, June 14, 2001, 17:19
J Matthew Pearson wrote:
>Steg Belsky wrote: > > > On Wed, 13 Jun 2001 17:06:00 +0200 Christophe Grandsire > > > > > How frequent are linguolabial sounds? And where are they spoken? I'm > > > curious > > > because they seem so difficult to pronounce to me!!! Your tongue has > > > to go through the teeth barrier!!! :))) > > > > I have no idea how frequent they are, and the only language i know of > > that uses them is i think Pablo Flores used them in a conlang of his a > > while ago. > >Linguolabial sounds are extremely rare, but not at all hard to pronounce, >IMO. Just touch the tip of your tongue to your upper lip and release. The >result sounds like a bizarre cross between /p/ and /t/ (which, >articulatorily speaking, it more-or-less is). If you're having trouble >pronouncing linguolabials because of the teeth, then you're probably not >opening your mouth wide enough. > >Ladefoged and Maddieson ("The Sounds of the World's Languages", 1996) >report the existence of linguolabials in a small group of languages spoken >in Vanuatu. Languages cited include Tangoa, Vao, and Umotina--none of >which I have heard of. No other languages are known to have these sounds.
"These sounds", that means they've got a who series? From what you say above, I conlcude they've got a voiceless linguolabial stop - what are the rest? Also, how're these sounds denoted in orthography? Are there any IPA or X-SAMPA conventions for representing them? Andreas _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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J Matthew Pearson <pearson@...>