Re: Phonetics
| From: | John Vertical <johnvertical@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, March 22, 2006, 19:46 |
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Mark J. Reed wrote:
>>Yuppers! Many Australian Aboriginal languages distinguish between all
>>three of dental, alveolar and postalveolar POAs (as stops), and most
>>of them also don't have any fricatives---at all. The three series are
>>redundantly distinguished the part of the tongue that touches the roof
>>tho: the dental are laminal, the alveolar are apical and the
>>postalveolar are retroflex.
>
>Friggin' Aborigines, screwing up a system that's perfectly adequate
>for everyone else.
Heh, true... but they don't have the exclusive rights. Today I accidentally
stumbled across a Cushitic language which also contrasts dentals and
alveolar stops:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahalo_language
I could swear I've seen a phonology of a Salishan or neiboring language
which does the same too, but the best I can find at the moment is /tT/ vs
/ts/.
Incidentally, why is it called the "roof" of the mouth and not "ceiling"??
John Vertical
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