OT: /x\/

Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> Paul Roser skrev:
[snip]
>  > When I was learning German many years ago my pronunciation
>  > of <ch> was a very scrapy uvular fricative, verging on a
>  > voiceless uvular trill - would that be acceptable in
>  > Swedish, or would it attract odd looks?
[snip]
>  > (And if any of our resident Welsh speakers are reading
>  > this, would it be acceptable for Welsh <ch>?
No - Welsh _ch_ is [X]. But anglophones with Welsh as L2 often use [x].

> And what is
>  > the distinction between that and the voiceless uvular
>  > trill realization of <rh> in Northern Wales?)
>
> I don't *know*, but probably the _ch_ is untrilled.
Indeed it is.

Whereas _rh_ both north and south is trilled /r/ with concomitant
aspiration (we've discussed several times before on this list whether
this is a question of devoicing the /r/ with aspiration being secondary
or of aspirating the /r/ with devoicing being secondary. I think the
general consensus at the end of these repeated threads has been that
it's basically the same thing   :)

Usually AFAIK in both parts of Wales the /r/ is trilled apically, but in
some areas in north Wales the uvular trill is indeed used. Sure, a
uvular trill with aspiration will be a voiceless, aspirated uvular
_trill_ - it will, however, not be an untrilled [X].

--
Ray
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