Re: Common Orcish Article (Long) - was Re: tolkien?

Quoting Doug Dee <AmateurLinguist@...>:

>        Orcs are always shown with protruding fangs, a physical feature which
> definitely limits the sounds they can make.  Many subtle sounds that require
> a
> completely closed mouth to produce will be unknown to orcs, because their
> fangs literally get in the way.  Their harsh, savage nature will further
> lead
> orcs to use mostly harsh, guttural sounds.  Therefore, the only consonant
> sounds
> in the language are D, G, J, K, N, R, T, and Z.  The vowel sounds are A (as
> in
> "at"), E (as in "egg"), and O (as in "off"). . .
Interestingly, this minimalistic inventory features the same lack of bilabials
as does Yargish, which it also resembles in having a three-vowel system.

The vocalic inventory - apparently [E & O] - is however fairly exotic; for
human langs, at least, you'd expect the vowels to spread out fairly
symmetrically over the good ol' vowel tetragon, rather than all clustering at
similar height. (Yargish's [i a M] is rather more as expected in this regard.)

Also, I do not know if there's any universal for this, but from the languages
I've seen, I'd expect that one that fails to distinguish voiced and voiceless
fricatives and affricates would have the default pronunciation as voiceless,
while this lang apparently has the voiced.

Anadewistic question: is there any known human language that lacks bilabials?

                                                 Andreas

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