Re: Personal langs and converse of aux

Yoon Ha Lee sikayal:

> > Aspirated stops distinct from unaspirated stops
> > Rounded front vowels
> > Unrounded back vowels
> > The phones [T] and [D]
> > The trilled /r/
> > The untrilled American English /r/
>
> Dear God, trilled r's.  <slightly guilty look>  But I *am* working on the
> trill, darnit...it just sounds shaky.
Heh.  I admit that I cannot understand why some people find this sound
difficult.  I have never had any difficulty at all with the trill, and
used it as a child when I was playing around, long before I knew that it
was actually used in language.  But I know several people that still are
completely incapable of it, which mystifies me.

There are other oddities, too, in people's phonetic ability.  I can
pronounce the rounded front vowels without too much difficulty, but I
can't distinguish [o] from [C].  My friend can do those two, but cannot
hear or pronounce rounded front vowels!  And we're all native English
speakers!  (Actually, YHL speaks Korean, but evidently Korean doesn't
include a trill).


Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
"It is of the new things that men tire--of fashions and proposals and
improvements and change.  It is the old things that startle and
intoxicate.  It is the old things that are young."
-G.K. Chesterton _The Napoleon of Notting Hill_
Conlanger code: CLI> l%p+++ cS:R:N:H a++ y n18d:6 X+++ A-- E-- L-- N2.5
Idmp k++ ia-- p+ m++ o+++ P d++ b++ Yivríndil