Re: my iconic alphabet

Nathan Richardson scripsit:

> But does every IPA phoneme on the
> chart contrast with every other IPA phoneme in at
> least one language?
Yes, if by that you mean that for every pair of IPA sounds there is at
least one language that makes a phonemic distinction between them.
(This applies only to the principal symbols, not to the symbols as
modified by the diacritics in the right central area.)

> That is, does any one language use the postalveolar,
> retroflex, and/or retroflex "sh" sound in a
> semantically distinctive way?
Polish, at least, distinguishes two of them, and Sanskrit another two.
Perhaps some language distinguishes all three, but that is not
necessary.

> Does German also have a postalveolar "sh" sound?
German /S/ is like English /S/ except that it is pronounced with lip rounding.

> On the IPA chart, where is the /w/ sound? I would
> think it would be in the bilabial approximant box, but
> that's empty.
It's a special case, because it is coarticulated, being both labial and
velar.  Consequently it appears in the "additional consonants" section
in the lower left.

--
John Cowan           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all.  There
are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language
that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful.
        --_The Hobbit_