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Re: easy sounds

From:Arthaey Angosii <arthaey@...>
Date:Thursday, January 6, 2005, 0:23
Emaelivpeith # 1:
> But indepedantly of the natal language, are there some sounds that are > easier to produce?
Google around for developmental phonology or phoneme order of acquisition. The site http://www.colorado.edu/CDSS/SLHS4560/3_phon/chap3.2%20outline.html that I found suggests that, by the time a baby is about ready to say its first word, the following consonants "account for 90-95% of productions [h, w, j, p, b, m, t, d, n, k, g]."
> And also if there are natlangs where aspirated and non-aspirated consonants > are different phonemes
Yes. I'm not very knowledgeable in this subject, but I'm certain natlangs exist that have aspiration as a phonemic distinction. The example I'm familiar with is from Hindi (quoting Wikipedia): "In each position [of articulation], there are five varieties of consonant, with four oral stops and one nasal stop. An oral stop may be voiced, aspirated, both, or neither. This four-way opposition is the hardest aspect of Hindi pronunciation for a speaker of English." Also from Wikipedia: "In many languages, such as Hindi/Urdu, Mandarin, Korean, Icelandic and Ancient Greek, /t/ and /tʰ/ are different phonemes altogether." So there you go. :)
> I want to know it because I would eventualy like to create a language that > would be simple to say for everyone
You would almost certainly be interested in Rick Mornaeu's webpage "Phonology for Artifical Languages" at http://www.eskimo.com/~ram/phonology.html and specifically the chart at http://www.eskimo.com/~ram/segmental_phonemes.png -- AA (watch the Reply-To!)

Reply

Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>Aspirated & non-aspirated plosives (was: easy sounds)