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Re: Brr (was: Re: A few questions about linguistics concerning my new project)

From:Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...>
Date:Thursday, August 2, 2007, 14:57
Hallo!

On Thu, 2 Aug 2007 15:17:01 +0100, R A Brown wrote:

> ROGER MILLS wrote: > > Ray Brown wrote: > > > >> > >> Thinks: How does one give a language that Brr factor? > > > > Back in the 70s, my Natl.Public Radio station ran a series produced in > > Alaska-- folk tales of the Aleut (IIRC) people. The title ("The things > > that were said of them") was given in the language, as were the names of > > course and occasional phrases. It was all spoken very quietly and was > > full of [q]s and [?]s, and perhaps [x]s and [G]s. Somehow it felt > > "cold"*-- I imagined that the language had evolved that way so that the > > people wouldn't have to open their mouths very wide in the freezing > > cold :-)) > > Interesting idea :) > > Yes, not only the three vowels, but also[q], [?] and velar (or possibly > uvular) fricatives. > > If one created a conlang that had a similar sort of resonance with Inuit > as Sindarin has with Welsh, then maybe one gives the language a certain > brr factor - but, of course, only if a person is vaguely familiar with > Inuit in the first place!
Perhaps I'll do that in some Albic colonial language in Iceland or Greenland in the future :)
> (Sindarin must have a quite different feel for those who have no > knowledge whatever of Welsh than the language has for me, for example).
I knew Sindarin before I got acquainted with Welsh; and indeed, back then I couldn't say it felt "Celtic" to me, but definitely "otherworldly". (And Quenya felt more Latin-like to me.)
> > *maybe too, because of the subject matter, > > I think that is the important factor.
Yep. Though many think of languages of tropical paradises as being like Polynesian - lots of vowels and few consonants - and Eskimo is indeed phonologically about as far away from Polynesian as it could be.
> ------------------------- > > Benct Philip Jonsson wrote: > [snip] > > Icelandic does it with a lack of voiced stops, > > lots of strong aspiration and preaspiration > > Scots Gaelic's like that also - we southerners find it quite cold up > there in Scotland :)
The northernmost dialect of Old Albic, spoken in what is now Scotland, has only three vowels without quantity distinction, strongly aspirated stops contrasting with unaspirated ones, and no voiced obstruents.
> > and most importantly voiceless sonorants. > > Voiceless sonorants are not too common, but are they really more > prevalent in languages from cold climates? > > Again one could, in order to give the language a Brr factor, construct > one with a vaguely Icelandic feel - but again it would, of course, be > completely lost on those who know nothing of Icelandic. > > Personally I doubt very much that any phonetic or phonological system is > "cold language" per_se.
Concurred. We perhaps associate the kind of phonologies found in Eskimo-Aleut languages with a friggin' cold environment, but that's just because these languages are spoken there. Brad Coon's Feorran ( http://www.lib.montana.edu/~bcoon/feorran.html ), which is meant to be spoken in Antarctica, has a phonology not much like Eskimo-Aleut.
> To give the language a Brr factor, one surely > needs to have its literary texts dealing quite a bit with its snowy, icy > environment in which the language is spoken.
Verily so. ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf