Re: "Essiness, Ishiness, Veeiness, Aitchiness & /X/" (was: none)

At 1:05 pm +0100 8/3/02, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>En réponse à "M.E.S." <suomenkieli@...>:
[snip]

>> [h] than anything else (*o*), although I'm
>> contemplating to incorporate more of the /X/ [as in
>> Dutch g or Spanish j].  BTW, /X/ is called a fricative
>> - right?  (Get that confused with affricative)
>>
>
>Well, it's indeed a fricative, but not the one you're thinking of :)) . The
>Spanish "j" is /x/, the voiceless velar fricative. The Dutch "g" is /x/
>only in
>the North. In the South it's /G/, the voiced velar fricative. /X/ is the
>voiceless *uvular* fricative, farther back in the throat (it's the voiceless
>equivalent of the French "r"). Well, not a bad sound by itself, but probably
>not the one you were thinking of :)) .
Exactly.

Out of interest, the Welsh {ch} is strictly [X], tho Anglophones tend to
pronounce it as [x].  This is probably why the Welsh {ch} never gets
fronted like the German ich-laut when next to front vowels.

Of course [X] is only the voiceless equivalent of the modern Parisian [R];
the older trilled uvular "r", which I have heard, has a different voiceless
equivalent - the {rh} as pronounced in some parts of North Wales.

The Welsh /r/ is always trilled.  Normally it's an apical trill (tip of the
tongue) but in some parts of the north one hears a uvular trill.  {rh} is
the voiceless equivalent of these trills.

Ray.


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A mind which thinks at its own expense
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