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!)
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