Re: Nonpulmonic conlang?

On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 12:09 PM, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
> If the airstream is ingressive (i.e. is drawn into the body),
I suppose I should clarify that I mean the broader sense of pulmonic,
i.e. you can make the sound without moving your chest/lungs at all
(whether in or out).

Put another way, you should be able to use the entire language
perfectly well even if your airflow is cut off at the neck (assuming,
of course, that you have the presence of mind to say something instead
of having a panic attack 'cause you're choking).

You should be able to model this by just clenching your neck muscles, hard.

(FWIW: This idea came about because, due to neurological issues [a
'chronic motor tic'], this actually happens to me involuntarily on a
regular basis. So I was wondering, hmm, *could* I have a language I
could still use while choking, that's not a sign language? And more
generally, could I have one that just doesn't happen use the lungs at
all on a day-to-day basis...)

> (b) the lingual (velaric) airstream:
> If the airstream is egressive, it's known as spitting, which is, maybe, not
> a sound we'd want to include     ;)
It's a matter of taste, I guess. :-P (It's just fine as far as the
question goes.)

> I assumed Sai was referring to consonant phonemes; maybe I was wrong. Are
> nonpulmonic vowels at all possible.
I have absolutely no idea if this is possible given the restriction I
clarified above, but if it is, then yes it counts and I'd like to see
some video of the feat. ;-)


On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 1:03 PM, Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...> wrote:
> Alternatively, it could involve carrying a pocketful of assorted noise making devices.
Cheater. :-P


On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 4:20 PM, Eldin Raigmore
<eldin_raigmore@...> wrote:
> So, unless your speakers aren't human, or for some other reason you don't
> want the language to be pronounceable, you have to have some pulmonic
> egressive sounds, if only to serve as the nuclei of syllables.  (Actual vowels
> would do quite nicely, of course.)
Humans only.

However, I don't agree that you have to have syllable-nuclei at all.

For example, Arabic has the quasi?-word /t/, which is a colloquial way
of saying "no" (/la/ is the standard form, IIRC). I'm perfectly
willing to accept this.

Whether this counts as a "syllable" or not is a question I'm happy to
leave to the philosophers amongst us. ;-)


On beatboxing: I don't consider it "sign language" (I did mean the
usual sort), and it's a very interesting possibility, but not an
answer in the spirit of the question.

I'd still like to hear more about that line of ideas, though!

- Sai

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