Re: Lip-plates

On Mon, 12 Jun 2000, Kristian Jensen wrote:

> Just curious as to how lip plates would affect the
> phonology of a language. Do cultures with lip-plates
> have labial sounds at all in their respective languages?
> There can't be rounded vowels, can there?
Interesting question.  IIRC, some people have claimed that such cultures
do not ever have labials.  But the Masset Haida use (or at
least used to use) lip-plates, and they do have labials.  The Haida
language has  [u] -- I assume that it is rounded, because no description
I've ever seen says it isn't and that is the kind of thing that would be
mentioned (I'd think).  Labial consonants are sparse, but they do occur
and are increasing due to loans.  [p] (unaspirated) definitely occurs, and
I think [b] and [m] do too.  They also have labialized velars and
labialized uvulars (contrasting with the unlabialized).  Don't ask me how
they sound, because I've never heard the language spoken and have a hard
time imagining it.


 There are
> also cultures where only about half of the community
> wear lip-plates (e.g. only men). Would that create a
> situation where there are two different phonologies for
> the same language (e.g. men don't have rounded
> vowels, while women and children do)? Or would there
> always be one phonology per language (e.g. the language
> completely lacks rounded vowels)?
There could be two slightly different phonologies.  Such a situation is
not completely unheard of.

Marcus