Re: Tit'xka (Pretty Long Post)

On Mon, 28 Dec 1998, Steg Belsky wrote:

> On Mon, 28 Dec 1998 17:49:49 -0600 Eric Christopherson <eric@...>
> writes:
> >So you were SERIOUS about wolf-sized tarantulas? :) It looks really
> >neat and harsh-sounding, but I also wondered about the vowels. Does
> >anyone know if the system of /a/ /i/ /I/ /@/ is anatomically
> >plausible?
>
> >I was just wondering the other day, "are there any languages without
> >either /o/ or /u/, or without either /e/ or /i/?"
>
> Well, i seem to remember a language which died out a few years ago (but
> was heavily documented by scientists, linguists, etc. and its last
> speaker) which had many many many phonemicly different consonants, and
> only one vowel - i think it was /a/ .  If i remember correctly, it was
> from the Caucasus region.  And people a few hundred years ago (when it
> was spoken by an entire ethnic group) had described it as "the sound of
> marbles hitting the floor".
>
Kamassian? (Uralic/Samoyedic/Sayan Samoyedic)

-------ferke
Ferenc Gy. Valoczy

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