Re: An arabo-romance conlang?

On Thu, Feb 01, 2001 at 05:18:10PM -0800, J Matthew Pearson wrote:
> Eric Christopherson wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Feb 01, 2001 at 01:17:12PM -0500, Vasiliy Chernov wrote:
> > > In Semitic langs themselves, pharyngeals are often a result of wealening
> > > the uvulars (in fact, all well attested languages except Arabic had lost
> > > their uvulars this way).
> >
> > Pharyngeals are *weakened* uvulars? The world is a very strange place,
> > seeing as how I can produce uvulars just fine but pharyngeals give me
> > trouble...
>
> Pharyngeals are *not* weakened uvulars, at least not literally.  Uvulars are made
> with constriction at the back of the throat.  Pharyngeals are made with
> constriction at the pharynx, which likes about halfway down the throat from the
> uvula to the glottis.
Well yes, I'm aware (intellectually at least) of what they are; it's just
that I found Vasiliy's claim that they resulted from a weakening of uvular
sounds a bit hard to swallow. (But if I gag while trying to swallow it, I
may be able to produce a pharyngeal! :) )

--
Eric Christopherson / *Aiworegs Ghristobhorosyo