Re: Describing the Welsh LL to non-linguists

R A Brown wrote:

> quoting me:
>> quoting Veoler:
>>> I usually describe it as a "harsh voiceless l" (where the
>>> "harshness"
>>> implies the difference between the approximant and the fricative).
>>> Even more non-linguistic maybe that it is a "raw hissing
>>> sound" (well,
>>> "hissing" to me implies high-pitch, is there some other word for
>>> "low-pitch hissing"? That would be more accurate).
>> I have a couple of tunes by Gwenan Gibbard, and I have thought
>> that she's been overdoing both her /K/'s and /L/'s a little,
>
> {puzzled} There is no /L/ in Welsh (maybe she was singing a
> different language?)
Sorry, I meant /l_0/. I'm a little confused with all this
symbolololology.

> But having just listened to a clip of her singing, her /K/ sounds
> to me just what I would expect (I did live in Wales for 22 years) -
> it doesn't sound at all overdone (but I wish I could trill my /r/
> the way she does  :)
O yes, the trills are nice, aren't they?

I've been listening to music on headphones a lot since my old stereo
broke down. I suspect they make sibilants and such things a bit
stronger than normal.

>> The voiceless l is found in the north of Norway as well, btw, but
>> there it's rather more of an approximant than a fricative.
>
> {scratches head} Isn't a voiced approximant lateral just plain
> ol' [l]?
Sorry, I meant voiceless....oops, I wrote voiceless, too!

LEF

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