Re: Paucity of Phonemes (was Re: Thagojian phonology...

On Sat, 26 Feb 2000 21:31:13 +0100 Kristian Jensen <kljensen@...>
writes:
> Easy! Consider English /r/ and then the American English retroflexed
> vowel in words like 'bird' and 'heard'. English /r/ could be seen as
> a
> consonantal version of the retroflexed vowel. A better parallel
> would be
> Danish /r/. In syllable final position, its a consonantal version of
> a
> low back unrounded vowel [V] - hence, a pharyngeal sound. This is the
> same principle behind Boreanesian /3/. I did say that /@/ is more
> specifically a raised and centralized close-mid back vowel - hence,
> consonantal [@] is approximately a velar sound.
> -kristian- 8)
.

The way you're describing it reminds me of the Israeli /r/ sound....it
seems to be (to me at least) a velar approximant (which approaches a
fricative sometimes).  In my Sketch of Unnamed Semitic Conlang, i was
thinking of having that be descended from /3/, `ayin (voiced pharyngeal
fricative).  I was planning on romanizing it as an R with an acute.


-Stephen (Steg)
 "psycho killer, [kEsk@'sej] - fah fah fah fah fah, fah fah fah fah fah -
far better,
  run run run, run run away..."