Re: Strange phonology

Nik Taylor wrote:

>FFlores wrote:
>> 4) I just produced a sound more or less like the
>> one a child might produce when he sticks out the
>> tip of his tongue between his teeth, and blows.
>> I found in this way you can produce a trill
>> (makes your lower lip shake) or an approximant
>> (air going between the tongue and the lower lip),
>> though I don't know if they exist in any language,
>> or how to call them. What do you think?
>
>I know of no language with those sounds, but I guess you'd call
>them a "linguolabial" sound.
>
That's what I'd call that sound as well. There reason why those
particular sounds have not been attested is because "linguolabial"
sounds are extremely rare in the first place. The only place I know
where they occur for certain is in New Caledonia and a few other
places in Melanesia. And still, the linguolabial sounds that occur
here are only as stops (both nasal and oral).

But here is another sound I read about from the book "Sounds of the
World's Languages" describing an even more unusual sound involving
the tongue outside the mouth. It is from a language called Piraha~,
spoken by approximately 250 people in Brazil. The sound is called a
"voiced, lateralized apical-alveolar/sublaminal-labial double flap
with egressive lung air". In the formation of this sound the tongue
tip first touches the alveolar ridge and then comes out of the
mouth, almost touching the upper chin as the underblade of the
tongue touches the lower lip.

Now how is THAT for an unusual sound in a natlang!!! 8-)

-kristian- 8-)