Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

OT: YAGPT: velar vs. uvular (was: my phonology)

From:J. 'Mach' Wust <j_mach_wust@...>
Date:Friday, January 7, 2005, 14:19
On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 14:03:27 -0000, Christian Thalmann <cinga@...> wrote:

>--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, "J. 'Mach' Wust" <j_mach_wust@Y...> wrote: > >> >I think /C/ >> >is so much different from /x/ that a contrast would be feasible. >> >> You might be cheated by your German ears. I believe that German /x/ >> often tends to be [X]. At least I think I can observe that I pronounce my >> German /x/ further back in the mouth than my German /k/. > >German Ach-Laut is usually somewhere in between [X] and [x] -- >[x_-] maybe? > >I can pronounce both of the latter, and consider them quite >distinct. [C] and [x] sound very different to me. The Russians >at my institute use [x] in "ich", and it doesn't sound like >either High German [C], High German [x_-] or Swiss [X].
Swiss /x/ and standard German /x/ have different sounds, but I'd say the difference is rather in the manner of articulation than in the point of articulation: Swiss /x/ tends to be lightly trilled [R\_0]. Have you ever heard the Highest Alemannic dialect of Bernese Oberland (very different from Bernese dialect). In words such as /xats/ 'cat', /'lax:@/ 'laugh', or /'ts&:xni/ 'ten', they have a sound that's quite similar to a [C], or at least much more similar to it than other Swiss German/standard German pronunciations of /x/. It's often described as soft. kry@s: j. 'mach' wust

Reply

Christian Thalmann <cinga@...>