Re: Your vote on a common global language
From: Brian M. Scott (b.scott_at_csuohio.edu)
Date: 12/13/04
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Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:15:46 -0500
On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 20:20:33 +0000, Padraig Breathnach
<padraigb@MUNGEDiol.ie> wrote in
<news:0vtrr0t4nd3d176cm6d5ee01n9ltmlf922@4ax.com> in
rec.travel.europe,sci.lang:
> Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@wxs.nl> wrote:
>>On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 19:25:43 +0100, "André Keshav"
>><andre_dumarc@hhotmaill.com> wrote:
>>>"Lee Sau Dan" <danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de>
>>>| André> Apart from tones, what makes spoken Mandrin difficult to
>>>| André> understand for e.g. a European is to differentiate between
>>>| André> some of the consonants, because you don't have the
>>>| André> distinction between aspirated and unaspirated consonants in
>>>| André> European languages.
>>>| Yes you do. English is an example. German is another. (How about
>>>| other Germanic languages?)
>>>In European languages, it's usually a voiced / unvoiced distinction it
>>>seems to me. But aspirated / unaspirated (as in Mandarin)? Do you have any
>>>examples?
>>English. Despite what they're called, initial (as well as
>>final) b-, d-, g- are phonetically voiceless in English.
>>Voicing starts at the every end, just before the vowel or
>>resonant sets in. Voice onset time comes even later for
>>initial p-, t-, k-, partway through the vowel (or resonant).
>>The initial devoiced part of the vowel or resonant is what's
>>perceived as "aspiration".
> I cannot relate to this.
> But there are stronger contenders in Europe. The Celtic languages have
> very strongly aspirated consonants. In Irish Gaelic (and Scottish
> Gaelic, too, I think) an aspirated "b" can sound very like a "v" or a
> "w" (which sound it has depends on the vowel next to it).
This is an obsolete (and now incorrect) use of the term
'aspiration'; the soft mutation in Irish and Scottish Gaelic
(and in in Welsh) is properly called 'lenition', a
'softening' of the consonant. The aspiration that Miguel,
André, and Sau Dan are talking about is essentially a brief
silent interval between the explosion of the consonant and
the voicing of the following vowel. The traditional English
illustration of the difference between aspirated and
unaspirated is the /p/ of <pin> vs. the /p/ of <spin>, the
former being aspirated, the latter not; you can detect the
difference by holding your hand in front of your mouth
whilst pronouncing these words. You'll feel a much more
emphatic puff of air after the /p/ in <pin> than after that
of <spin>; this puff -- a sort of [h] sound, whence the term
'aspiration' -- is produced during the brief hiatus between
the explosion of the /p/ and the voicing of the vowel.
The misuse of the term 'aspiration' for the Irish mutation
probably goes back to the custom of using <h> to indicate
it.
[...]
Brian
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