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Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.

From:Eric Christopherson <rakko@...>
Date:Friday, August 22, 2008, 3:41
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.