Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Fricative vowels

From:Daniel Andreasson <noldo@...>
Date:Monday, December 6, 1999, 18:21
Pablo Flores wrote:

> I got this from a non-affiliated conlanger friend of mine:
=20
> > In Sweden, they were first noticed in the place called Viby=20 > > (which I have no idea whatsoever of where is).=20 > > Vibrant/approximant vowels, if I got it correctly [...] > > In other words, they were pronounced, I think, like with=20 > > an r-ish, or z-ish sound to them; perhaps simultaneously=20 > > pronounced with r or z, or perhaps just pronounced with=20 > > a vibrating tongue.
> I told him there are also such vowels in Mandarin, IIRC. Can > anybody confirm or correct this? And what about the Sweden vowels? > I think this feature is exclusive of Viby (wherever it is); do you > know of any other places?
He might be thinking of Viby-i and Viby-y. Viby /vi:bY/ is situated in N=E4rke (somewhere in the central part of Sweden), but the Viby-i is used in several other parts of Sweden, but with slighly different pronunciations. Let me quote Sven Bj=F6rsten: (from the website http://www.ling.su.se/staff/svenb/Viby_i_eng.html) "Several local dialects from widely scattered areas of Sweden=20 show i- and y-sounds pronounced with a characteristic 'buzzing'=20 or 'damped' quality." ...and further down: "3) Viby-i,y will be considered in a global, cross-language=20 typological perspective. The vowel inventories of several=20 languages contain sounds that show similarities to Viby-i,y,=20 for instance the fricative vowels of Mandarin, and above all=20 the high, central vowels found in a wide array of languages.=20 Hopefully, the situation in Sweden will shed light on general=20 problems concerning the classification and development of=20 these sounds, and vice versa." He is working together with the SweDia2000 project at Stockholm University (http://www.swedia.nu).=20 (SweDia =3D Swedish Dialects) The SweDia-people (of which I know a couple and may ask if anyone is interested) has done extensive research on formants, etc. of the Viby-i and here is a short summary=20 (translated into English by me): "Data from vowel formants and simulations made with a quantitative speech production model, indicates that the vowel has a centralized articulation, either without or with a more or less marked apical=20 element. This points towards Viby-i being incorporated into the=20 overarching category 'high unrounded central vowel',=20 i.e. IPA /=F6/ [my comments: '&ouml;', though at another page they write 'i-bar', which I think is more correct.]" "Between the front and back raising of the tongue, it lowers somewhat and thus below the high-arching palate ceiling there is created a closed room of resonance, which gives the sounds a 'thick', 'dark' and 'buzzing' tone." There is a lot more. The address is: http://www.ling.su.se/staff/olle/ICPhS-abstract.html (English) or in Swedish: http://www.ling.su.se/staff/olle/Karis-98.html (Swedish) Well, that was a bit long, but I hope I could be of any help. Oh, and Pablo, is this non-affiliated conlanger Swedish? It would be interesting to get in touch with another Swedish conlanger. Afaik, we're not that many. :) / Daniel