Re: Tit'xka (Pretty Long Post)

> Well, in English, whenever you pronounce a voiceless stop like /k/, if you
> do it at the beginning of a syllable like in "cat", a brief extra puff of
> air follows,
> called aspiration.  In English, this extra puff doesn't make any
> difference (except
> for making e.g. the difference between /k/ and /g/ slightly greater), but
> in
> many languages, e.g. Hindi, the difference between having the puff and not
> having the puff is as great as the difference between /k/ and /g/ in the
> minds
> of the speakers.  For example, Hindi's set of (stop) consonants has:
>
> p      t      k
> ph    th    kh
> b      d    g
> bh    dh   gh  (<--- these are the socalled "voiced aspirates", very very
> rare
>                     as consonants go - only 6 modern languages have 'em)
>
> So, I was thinking that since you said that voicing is difficult for your
> aliens, having a series of aspirated consonants being distinct from non-
> aspirated consonants would make it easier on you, in that you could make
> more phonological distinctions than would be possible otherwise.
>
> It's just an idea;  you don't have to follow up on it.
>
If it weren't for the CONLANG list I would never have a clue about this.  As
I have stated in an earlier post today, I might introduce this in a later
stage of the language.  Again, thanks to everybody who helped me make the
distinction. :)