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IPA griefs

From:H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...>
Date:Monday, October 23, 2000, 1:14
OK, I've just been listening to some of the IPA sound clips I got off
Taliesin's FTP site, and found out that 5 of the IPA symbols I put on my
conlang's webpage were totally wrong. In fact, the IPA transcriptions I've
been using in my posts are wrong, for these 5 sounds...  but the worst
part is, I don't know what the right symbols might be! :-(

So I need some help here, to get the right IPA sounds.

What I labelled the "palatals" on my webpage turned out to be not palatals
at all... at least as far as I can tell from the sound clips. In
particular:
1) _C_ is the ch sound in English "chance" -- is that /tS/ or something
  like that?
2) _c_ is the non-aspirate version of _C_. I don't even know if IPA has a
  different representation for this sound; but my conlang definitely makes
  a clear distinction here.
3) _j_ is the voiced version of _c_, and is like the English "soft g"
  (such as in "germaine"). Unlike the English 'j', this sound is more
  palatal than alveolar (and definitely not dental). What could the IPA
  symbol be?
4) _jh_ is the fricatized version of _j_. I don't know offhand of
  any natlangs I know that has this sound, so I can't give an example.
5) _ch_ is like the English "sh"... and is basically the fricatized
  version of _c_, or the unvoiced version of _jh_.

Somehow, my ears tell me that these consonants belong to the same type
(dental, labial, ...) but I must be misunderstanding something here...

So... please help a conlanger in distress :-P


T