Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.

On Aug 21, 2008, at 6:08 PM, ROGER MILLS wrote:

> David Peterson wrote:
>> <<
>> Hm, after listening to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
>> v=zmIXW8SGTek&feature=related , I am beginning to wonder if the
>> voiced h is a myth. Any comments?
>> >>
>>
>> What, the sound itself?  I pronounce it all the time in the English
>> word "ahead".
>>
> Oh you californians :-))))  It's voiceless (for me) in words like
> that, but try this:
>
> Start with "aha"( voicelss h) then try to keep the glottis in the
> same shape (no glottal stop permitted), eliminate the /h/, keep two
> distinct syllables "a_a". That's what we were told in Phonetics
> class...............
The wikipedia article < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Voiced_glottal_fricative > is pretty interesting. Apparently it is
not usually a true fricative, and has no place of articulation, but
is instead a kind of disembodied phonation type... that much I knew,
but the article says that in some languages (e.g. Finnish) it
actually *is* a fricative. I still don't quite understand how it
could be, though.