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

Hallo!

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 20:21:26 +0100,
Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:

> > Quoting Roger Mills <romilly@...>:
>
> > Andreas Johansson wrote:
> > (Yargish, as it happens, does have
> > > a pair of labiodental fricatives; unlike the normal situation in human
> > speech,
> > > they are typically pronounced with the lower teeth against the upper lip.)
> > >
> > GMTA!!!
>
> I'm unfamiliar with that acronym, unfortunataly.
So am I.

> > That's how /f/ and /v/ are supposed to be pronounced in Kash; I
> > guess they have a under-bite......but alternatively they can be bilabial
> > (mainly for my benefit, so I don't dislocate my jaw.)
>
> The Yargish, like any dice gods-fearing RPG/RTS Orcs, have massive lower jaws
> and hefty underbites, whence the "reversed" labiodentals (is there any ready-
> made terms to refer to the two kinds of labiodentals?).
How about "dentilabials"?

I have also spent some thought on an Orc language phonology.  My idea
was to eliminate all labial and labialized phonemes, because the Orcs
with their underbites and big fangs cannot make a proper lip closure,
nor can they round their lips, at least not without tremendous effort.
This also means that you cannot lip-read an Orc ;-)

Trolls also have no labial or labialized phonemes, no dentals or
alveolars either, and only back unrounded vowels.

>       Myself, I do not, and
> so substitute "normal" labiodentals. It's not like any human could pronounce
> Yargish with a perfect accent anyway; our oral cavities are not of quite the
> right shape, simply. I also tend to "cheat" with /J/ and /M/, substituting
> [n_dj] and [u], but that's just laziness.
>
> (For Meghean, I'm assuming the Elves' oral cavities are within the human range
> of variation. Near as I can tell, about the only oddity about its phonology is
> that it has mid-high vowels, but no mid-low ones, which apparently defies a
> universal or two.)
The Elves who speak Hesperic (my language family formerly known as "Q")
are 100% human, and thus, their oral cavities are within human norm,
and Hesperic phonology is within that, too.

Greetings,

Jörg.

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