Languages of the World - Sounds of the World's Languages

<lang>Xhosa</lang><br><ldata>Niger-Congo:Bantu - South Africa</ldata> 
<iframe data-autoplay width="840" height="500" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Qg4Fp-A7IRw"></iframe>

Miriam Makeba - "The Click Song"

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# Sounds of the World's Languages!
### LING 1020 - Will Styler

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Today's lecture is meant to help you out, not to be memorized!

* *You won't be expected to know phonetic terms for the test!*

* I just want you to know how to figure out how to make a sound

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## Want to incur Will's wrath?

* It's easy!  Just say...

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<lang>English</lang><br><ldata>IE:Germanic, All over the damned place</ldata>

**"I'm not even gonna try and pronounce that."**

* 'I embrace failure!'

* 'I don't want to learn!'

* 'I hereby abandon my linguistic aspirations'

* 'Will, I summon thy righteous wrath upon me'

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### It's always better to try!

* Trying provides practice

* After trying, you'll be more likely to do

* Sooner or later, you won't have a choice

* ... but you need to know how to start trying!

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### The Big Questions

* How does speech work?

* How do we describe speech sounds?

* How do languages around the world differ in terms of sound?

* What's with the clicking in Africa?

* Are there sounds that "English speakers just can't produce"?

* Are there other across-language differences in terms of sound?

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## How does speech work?

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### The Speech Process

* Flapping bits of meat inside your head

* This creates vibrations in the air

* The ear picks these up, and inteprets them as speech.

* This is studied in **Phonetics**

* *For more info about all this, take LING 2000 and 3100!*

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### Flapping bits of meat ("articulation")

<img class="r-stretch big" src="phonmedia/nasalsagittal.jpg" alt="$txt"> 
	
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## How do we describe speech sounds?

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We're going to focus on consonants today.

<small>(For the awesomeness of vowels, take LING 3100 or ask me in office hours!)</small>

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### Describing Consonants

* We need to know three things:

* **Place**: Where is the sound made?

* **Manner**: What are we doing there?

* **Voicing**: Are we making voicing?

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### Place

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### Place

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### Place

* **Bilabial**: As in "***b***oy"

* **Labiodental**: As in "***V***ote"

* **Alveolar**: As in "***T***o***t***e***s***!"

* **Postalveolar**: As in "***J***u***dge***"

* **Velar**: As in "Ta***c***o***c***at"

* **Glottal**: As in "Uh***-***oh!"

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### "Michael Bay destroyed my childhood"

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### Manner

* **Stops**: Stop the airflow

* **Fricatives**: Constrict the airflow to make sounds

* **Nasals**: Channel the air out the nose

* **Approximants**: Bring the tongue *toward* the place

* **Laterals**: Channel air *around* the tongue

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### "Grumpy Cat hates humans"

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### Voicing

* Is the larynx buzzing, or not?

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## Let's pretend we're snakes eating bees!

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Once we've organized sounds by place, manner, and voicing, we have...

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## The International Phonetic Alphabet!

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English Consonants

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<img class="r-stretch" src="phonmedia/ipa_consonants.png" alt="$txt">

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### Other Places of Articulation

* ***Retroflex***: Curl the tip of your tongue back

* ***Palatal***: Make an "eeeeee" sound, then raise your tongue.
	* Or pretend you're an angry cat.

* ***Uvular***: Bring the back of the tongue to your Uvula

* ***Pharyngeal***: Bring the back of your tongue to the back of your throat

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### Can't figure out where in the mouth that is?

Ask [Sammy the Interactive Sagittal Section](http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~danhall/phonetics/sammy.html)!

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### Other Manners of Articulation

* ***Trill***: Use the air to flap your tongue rapidly

* ***Tap***: Throw your tongue against the roof of your mouth

* ***Lateral Fricative***: Blow air quickly around the sides of your tongue!

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## Vowels!

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Languages differ in terms of the number of available vowels

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### Arabic has three vowels

* /i, a, u/

* (They do have meaningful vowel length, though!)

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### Languages often have five vowels

* /i, e, a, o, u/

* (as in Spanish, "misa, mesa, masa, mosca, muda")

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### English has way more than five vowels!

* / i, ɪ, e, ɛ, æ, ə, ʌ, ɑ, ɔ, ʊ, u /

* beet, bit, bait, bet, bat, sof**a**, but, bot, bought, book, boot

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### There are other vowels that we don't have!

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"Are there any *types* of sounds that we don't have?"

* **Yep!**

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### Types of sounds not found in English

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For more IPA info, see the [resources listing](http://savethevowels.org/resources/#ipa) on the course site!

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## "People in Africa speak only with clicks"

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### Clicks in Africa

* Clicks are used extensively in Khoisan languages

* (spoken by ~400,000 people)
	
* They've also been borrowed into Zulu and Xhosa, both Bantu languages (within Niger-congo)

* (~17.6 million speakers)
	
* This means that only ~1% of Africans speak a language where there are clicks

* All of these languages have lots of non-click sounds!

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<lang>San</lang><br><ldata>Khoisan - Namibia</ldata>

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## "I could never do that!"

* Yes, you can.

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<lang>Xhosa</lang><br><ldata>Niger-Congo:Bantu - South Africa</ldata>

# Anybody can pronounce any language!

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### Speech organs are universal

* There is not a meaningful difference between your vocal tract and a !Xoo speaker's

* The only difference between humans is practice!

* It's easier if you start off speaking the language

* There are no sounds English speakers "just can't produce", *with practice*.

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### ... but that doesn't mean it's easy

* Make a Voiceless Velar Fricative /x/ (as in "Chanuakkah", "Challah", "Bach")

* Make a voiced alveolar trill /r/ (the Spanish Rolled R)

* Make a voiceless palatal fricative (ç) (as in an angry cat)

* Make a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative (ɬ) (as in "nahuatl")

* Make a /!/ click between two vowels (/a!a/)

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# Are there other differences in how we use sound?

* Yep!

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## Tone

Changes in pitch during the word change the meaning of the word

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### Level Tone

"High" vs. "Low" (sometimes "mid" or "rising/falling")

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<lang>Zarma (Djerma)</lang><br><ldata>Nilo-Saharan:Songhay - Niger</ldata>

Yesterday - "bi"

Wound - "bi"

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<section data-background="img/clickerbkgrnd.png"></section>

<lang>Zarma (Djerma)</lang><br><ldata>Nilo-Saharan:Songhay - Niger</ldata>

Yesterday - "bi"

Wound - "bi"

* **Which has the high tone?**

* A - "Yesterday"
* B - "Wound"
 
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<section data-background="img/clickerbkgrnd.png"></section> 
<lang>Zarma (Djerma)</lang><br><ldata>Nilo-Saharan:Songhay - Niger</ldata>

Yesterday - "bi"

Wound - "bi"

**Which has the high tone?**

A - "Yesterday"

B - "Wound"

<audio data-autoplay src="phonmedia/zarma_tonecontrast.mp3"></audio>
 
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<section data-background="img/clickerbkgrnd.png"></section> 
<lang>Zarma (Djerma)</lang><br><ldata>Nilo-Saharan:Songhay - Niger</ldata>

Yesterday - "bi" - High

Wound - "bi" - Low

Dark - "bi" - Short vowel

**Which has the high tone?**

<correct>A - "Yesterday"</correct>

B - "Wound"

<audio data-autoplay src="phonmedia/zarma_tonecontrast.mp3"></audio>
 
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### Contour Tones

Pitch patterns change meaning

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<lang>Mandarin Chinese</lang><br><ldata>Sino-Tibetan - China</ldata>

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<lang>Mandarin Chinese</lang><br><ldata>Sino-Tibetan - China</ldata>

# 妈 麻 马 骂 吗

'mother bother horse scold QUESTION'

"Mom is bothered by the horse's scolding"

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### Voicing Types

Differences in the configuration of the vocal folds resulting in different voicing patterns.

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### Differences in Voicing Type

* ***Modal Voicing***: What we mostly use in English

* ***Creaky Voicing***: Using less air than usual

* ***Breathy Voicing***: Using more air than usual

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Creaky and breathy voicing are used *stylistically* in English

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### Contrastive Vowel length

When the duration of the vowel can change the meaning of the word

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<lang>Arabic</lang><br><ldata>AA:Semitic - All over</ldata>

عِد‎ /ʕidd/ - 'promise'

عِيد‎ /ʕiːd/ - 'feast'

عُد‎ /ʕudd/ - 'come back!'

عُود‎ /ʕuːd/ -	'lute'

عَد‎ /ʕadd/ - 'counted'

عَاد‎ /ʕaːd/ - 'came back'

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### This

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### Anything else?

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## Phonotactics

The study of what combinations of sounds are 'legal' in a language

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<lang>Japanese</lang><br><ldata>Japonic - Japan</ldata>

‘Merry Christmas' - merii kurisumasu

<small>([Image and Sound Credit](http://japanese.about.com/library/blqow33.htm))</small>

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<lang>Japanese</lang><br><ldata>Japonic - Japan</ldata>

‘Merry Christmas' - merii kurisumasu

<small>([Image and Sound Credit](http://japanese.about.com/library/blqow33.htm))</small>

* *Japanese does not allow anything but consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel*

<audio data-autoplay src="phonmedia/japanese_christmas.mp3"></audio>
 
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### Borrowings

When a language borrows a word from another language

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Languages often adapt words to fit their rules when borrowing.

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## Hawaiian Borrowings!

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### Iniseka

* Insect

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### Elepani

* Elephant

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### hipa

* Sheep

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### kaioke

* Coyote

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### Kanakalu

* Kangaroo

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### Lakuna

* Raccoon

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### Nupepa

* Newspaper

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### Mokokaikala

* Motorcycle

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### Kakalina

* Gasoline

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### Kelepona

* Telephone

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### Kolokalaiwa

* Screwdriver

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## Some languages allow more complexity!

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<lang>English</lang><br><ldata>I-E, Germanic, West Germanic - Damned Near Everywhere</ldata>

'Strengths'  (/stɹɛŋkθs/)

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<lang>Russian</lang><br><ldata>I-E, Slavic, East - Russia</ldata>

‘Glance’ - Всгляд (/vzglʲat/)

‘Of Construction’ - строительств (/strʌˈʲitʲɛlʲstf/)

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<lang>Czech</lang><br><ldata>I-E, Slavic, West, Czech-Slovak - The Czech Republic</ldata>

Strč prst skrz krk

‘Stick your finger down your throat’

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### Every language has arbitrary rules

* End a word with a pronounced /h/ ("Bah")

* Say the /ŋ/ in "ring" at the start of a word. ("Ngöndro")

* End a word with the vowel in "bet" or "book". ("Saké")

* English has "s", "k", "v", but say "Moskva"

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### There's a LOT more to sound-related differences...

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### ...but that's LING 3100's job!

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### For today, just know...

* Speech is all about place, manner, and voicing of meat-flapping

* Languages all use different sets of sounds

* Not all African languages are clicky, damnit

* Anybody can make any speech sound, with practice

* Tone is awesome

* Different languages allow different combinations of sounds

* Phonetics is awesome!

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<huge>Thank you!</huge>

http://savethevowels.org/talks/lotw_3.html