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Re: Why Consonants?

From:Aquamarine Demon <aquamarine_demon@...>
Date:Saturday, February 17, 2007, 6:12
>>Hello,
It always seemed to me that vowels are more distinct and clear than consonants (does everyone agree on this (imagine talking and listening over a phone with static)), but many languages have evolved to using consonants as the major indentifier for words. Here are some observations:<< Vowels are more distinct, yes. This is probably because vowels are more sonorant than most consonants. I would not say that consonants are used as the main identifiers of words. For one, vowels define syllables, while consonants never do. In other words, when you're counting the number of syllables in a word, you're counting the vowels, not the consonants. This is not to say consonants aren't important: every (human) language makes distinctions between vowels and consonants, so I'd say they were equal in importance.
>>1. Vowels are smaller when writing, it can be seen that the vowels aeiou
all stay between the baseline and the midline (ok, well maybe the dot of the i doesn't), but many consonants have strokes jutting out all over or under: bdfghjklpqt<< Well, as my linguistics professor has been saying all semester, writing is evil. In any case, had the Latin alphabet not developed a differentiation between upper and lower case, it's likely that this point would be moot; notice that all Latin caps are the same height, with no descenders: ABCDEFGH, etc.
>>2. Recognizability: take out the vowels: Mt m t th clbhs tmrr(w)... or
take out the consonants: ee e a e uoue ooo (OK, so English vowels each have more possible sounds than consonants, but that shows even more that people think consonants are more important.<< I don't think the meaning was at all clear with the vowels removed, either. But, again, writing is evil. English has around 14 vowels depending on one's dialect, and yet we only have 5 graphs to represent them. This is done rather badly, as many words retain spellings for old pronunciations (see the English Vowel Shift). Also, there are far more possible consonants than vowels, simply because there are far more variables and places of articulation possible with consonants. So yes, I agree that they can be more distinctive than vowel sounds.
>>Even if I used IPA or something else, I think the consonants would still
be easier to read) Originally: Meet me at the clubhouse tomorrow.<<
>>3. Writing systems: abjads leave out vowels.<<
As I understand it, the languages that use abjads are ones that have consonantal roots, for example, Arabic and Hebrew. The only example I know of is Arabic KTB, which is a root for "book" (according to the minimal notes I have). To get any sort of real words out of this, though, there has to be vowels: eg, kitab "book". But, the word can change meaning with vowel changes, among other things: kuutub "books". (uu is supposed to be a long u, if that's not obvious.) Disclaimer: I am in no way even a little bit proficient in Arabic, so if my explanation is off in any way, I'm sorry; it's coming from rough notes I've taken and other sketchy knowledge. For what it's worth, an abjad for English would be a nightmare; like I said, English has about 14 or so of them; by comparison, Arabic has about 6. In addition, we don't have anything like consonant roots, so if the vowels were not written down, we'd really have no consistent way to read a word and find out its meaning.
>>Are there any systems that leave out consonants?
-Leon<< Considering that any given language will have more consonants than vowels, I don't find this likely. It would be interesting to see, though. The Aquamarine Demon "There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell ____________________________________________________________________________________ It's here! Your new message! Get new email alerts with the free Yahoo! Toolbar. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/toolbar/features/mail/