Re: Describing the Welsh LL to non-linguists

Yeah, Ray was hallucinating again. :)

On Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 2:39 PM, Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...> wrote:

> 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
>


--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>