Re: Arabic Phonetics WAS Re: Primary Interjections - Unversals?

En réponse à Roger Christian <rogchr75@...>:

>
> Thank you & Jan for the welcome! I am terribly
> impressed by the sense of etiquette and general
> kindness on this list--browsing through 60,000+ old
> messages, I've yet to see a flame.
>
Well, we do have flames, and strong ones... if we compare to the usual level of
friendship of the list :)) . The difference is that we at least try never to
personally attack people. When we disagree on something, it's always on some
subject, not on the personality of the person itself. There is also a sense of
tolerance on this list that helps a lot.

>
> Can you pronounce /th/ & /dh/? I've never met a French
> native speaker who could (even Quebecois).
>
You mean aspirated t and d? Dental /T/ and /D/ (in "thing" and "there")? Or
something else? Well, Aspirated t and d, as well as the dental fricatives are
no problem for me. On the other hand, I usually don't aspirate initial
voiceless stops when I speak English, because the difference is only allophonic
and thus I was never taught it. But if I make the effort and concentrate on my
speech, I can easily aspirate all the consonants you want :)) . I'm not bad at
pronouncing foreign sounds (from my French perspective), and even quite good
for French standards :)) . I even can pronounce clicks, at least in
isolation :)) (next step: pronouncing them in words :)) ).

>
> Seriously, I can't reliably get them out in
> mid-sentence, but isolated I can get it. I can call
> out a good enough "Ya MuHammad!" to get half of the
> guys on a Moroccan street to turn around. (The other
> half are named 'Ali. :) )
>
:)))

> The best I can describe the trick to practicing
> (either voiced or voiceless) is to forget about your
> mouth altogether--just hold the position for low back
> vowel /a/. (It may also help to push your tongue
> against your bottom teeth, but keep it down.)  Now,
> try to use the muscles just above your Adam's apple to
> push up, trying to create a sensation like choking.
> (If you put your hand on your throat you can feel it.)
> Now exhale to get the voiceless fric,  or vocalize to
> get the voiced.
>
I'll try that (at home, because at work people are gonna wonder what's
happening if I begin to make choking sounds :)) ).

> That's my best shot. Maybe it will help. I actually
> find it somewhat easier (as a native Amer. English
> speaker) than a decent French uvular R. The /R/ is
> vastly harder for me than the stop /q/, for some
> reason, although I have no problems with a voiced
> velar fric.
>
What's the problem with the /R/? Especially since you manage /q/...

>
> The other thing that drives me nuts about Arabic is
> the crazy fact that the 2nd person masculine present
> tense and the 3rd person feminine present tense are
> exactly the same. Now there's an oddity I bet doesn't
> show up in many conlangs.
>
:))) I always found that also strange :)) .

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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