Re: Tit'xka (Pretty Long Post)

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".


-Stephen (Steg)

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