peevish about language

vganesh · Post by **vganesh** » 28 Apr 2009, 17:22

Wonderful discussion. Too technical :p . I am trying to understand right from retroflexes

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 29 Apr 2009, 00:31

The Englishman here is as baffled as he is in Tamil-based threads!

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 29 Apr 2009, 01:09

All this discussion took me to the International Phonetic Association symbol table.

Here is an audio enabled table : http://web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ipa/c ... IPAlab.htm

You can click on each symbol and hear the sample pronounciations. It is a riot

Give it a try.
Don't miss the non-pulmonic consonant table under the "clicks" column. There are african languages that use these click sounds.

Even after extensive search of the table, I could not find a good equivalent for tamil 'zha' as in pazham ( fruit ). It is probably the approximant-retroflex or approximant-velar but the way this person says it is not satisfactory. But it fits the definition of approximant and velar/retroflex.

BTW, our famous 't' under Plosive-Alvealor, the pronouncer does not quite say it the alvealor way when he says it in isolation ( the first time ) but when he combines it with 'a', it sounds correct. ( the second time ). Or it may be just my hearing. But if you listen back to back the 't' in the Plosive-Alvealor cell and the 't' in the first row, third column of the diatrics table, it is all abundantly clear.

IPA itself is quite loose in the alvealor-dental distinction in the sense they allow professionals to use the same phonetic symbol for both alvealor and dental unless otherwise specified in the table and depending on the language, you will have to interpret it as 'alvealor' ( e.g. English ) or as 'dental' ( e.g Sanskrit ). But if you want to illustrate explicitly one over the other, you have to use a Diacritics mark underneath the symbol to show that it is dental as opposed to alvealor.

So, if you want to code explicitly the Sanskrit 't' , you have to use the First Row Third column symbol in the Diatrics table in the above link. For English, you can code it simply as 't'.

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 29 Apr 2009, 01:26

VK - lot of work to learn the anatomy of the substructures of the mouth!!

Thanks to your efforts, I finally understood why Chembai's post on 'but' and 'put' was confusing to me - I mostly use the alveolar version of 't' for the T sound (in but, put, cat, and especially, telltale) and only retroflex for words like bhaTTadri, bhaTT, bhaTTAcArya etc.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 29 Apr 2009, 02:41

Ravi: That sounds right.

phoneme geek humor:

Q: What is Voiced epiglottal fricative?
A: It is quite a primitive sound. It is the sound you involuntarily make when you put your finger in the mouth to check the position of the tongue!

gn.sn42 · Post by **gn.sn42** » 29 Apr 2009, 03:01

vasanthakokilam wrote: Even after extensive search of the table, I could not find a good equivalent for tamil 'zha' as in pazham ( fruit ). It is probably the approximant-retroflex or approximant-velar but the way this person says it is not satisfactory. But it fits the definition of approximant and velar/retroflex.

It is the retroflex approximant:

Wikipedia on retroflex approximant

Wikipedia on Tamil consonants

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 29 Apr 2009, 04:17

Thanks gn.sn42 for those links.

I guess that is the closest class but it is still not satisfactory. When I utter that sound, the tip of my tongue is not in the retroflex position ( tip of the tongue touching the top palate ), but it is curved inwards. That is the difference between the zha sound and the other retroflex-approximant 'L' sound. With 'L' the tongue is definitely in the retroflex position but not for 'zha'. The Tamil Wiki link provided above seems to distinguish between 'zha' and 'L' only on how the sound is produced ( central vs lateral ) and not on where the tongue is.

Can a few of you who can make the zha sound properly check that against L as to where the tip of the tongue is and report back?

gn.sn42 · Post by **gn.sn42** » 29 Apr 2009, 05:57

vasanthakokilam wrote: I guess that is the closest class but it is still not satisfactory. When I utter that sound, the tip of my tongue is not in the retroflex position ( tip of the tongue touching the top palate ), but it is curved inwards.

Wikipedia defines "retroflex" a bit differently, and in this case says "...retroflex ... prototypically means it is articulated with the tip of the tongue curled up, but more generally means that it is postalveolar without being palatalized" which appears to be exactly what you say above.

If you're interested, this paper by Harold Schiffman is worth a read - he prefers the retroflex classification:

The Tamil Liquids (PDF, 1 MB)

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 29 Apr 2009, 06:13

Understood. Thanks Gnsn42. That resolves it more or less. Only the curving backwards is the requirement for retroflex and not touching the roof of the mouth. The other retroflex sounds T, N and L do but that is not a defining thing. Thanks.

I will read Dr. Schiffman's article later on. Thanks for the reference.

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 29 Apr 2009, 07:06

Silly as it sounds, say La without articulating it, and you get a c'L'icking sound. Do the same with zha and you get a muted whistling sound--which to this unscientific mind means, the tip of your tongue does not come into contact with the palate with a zha but the sides do?
Well, I tried!

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 29 Apr 2009, 09:25

Very good report Arasi. That makes sense. That muted whistling sound you mention seems to be caused by the air pocket created so the air flows through the center part of the mouth over the tongue. The sides of the tongue pressing against the palate creates that tunnel in the center. Whereas with L, because the tip of the tongue touches the palate and the sides are open, air flows through the sides of the tongue and obstructed at the center by the tip of the tongue. That is all it takes to create the two different sounds easily distinguishable to us.

vganesh · Post by **vganesh** » 29 Apr 2009, 09:49

CML Sir, Erode Sir and Mrindangam Sir..... Your help needed

to make this little thread more hilarious.

VK : In case of 'L' the tongue is not in a curved position. 'Zha' invariably in a curved situation. Thanks. I can also teach somebody else now about 'Zha'

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 29 Apr 2009, 11:17

Vk,
Air flow created the whistling, I knew, but could not describe it as you do!

Vganesh,
I don't think you can say either without curving your tongue. You aim for different parts of the palate.

srkris · Post by **srkris** » 02 May 2009, 01:08

vasanthakokilam wrote:BTW, our famous 't' under Plosive-Alvealor, the pronouncer does not quite say it the alvealor way when he says it in isolation ( the first time ) but when he combines it with 'a', it sounds correct. ( the second time ). Or it may be just my hearing. But if you listen back to back the 't' in the Plosive-Alvealor cell and the 't' in the first row, third column of the diatrics table, it is all abundantly clear.

Its alveolar, not alvealor - a question of phonetics

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 02 May 2009, 06:06

So I take it that you are on board with the general consensus that the 't' of English is alvealor and not dental.

mazhai · Post by **mazhai** » 19 May 2009, 19:42

bilahari wrote:"Like" is another one that I hate. Especially in the American usage meaning "said": "I was like 'this concert was uber cool' and then he was like 'dude, this concert sucked' " and on and on (with "teenage" rising intonation).

See if, like, you can, like, guess the most common English words:
http://www.sporcle.com/games/common_english_words.php

"like" we havent had enough with the Americans, this infectious habit has plagued India as well.....

mazhai · Post by **mazhai** » 19 May 2009, 19:45

Uday_Shankar wrote:
vidya wrote:Not necessarily an English usage but the term Shadjamam with the meaningless and redundant additional am as opposed to just Shadjam is quite irksome! (it is so pervasive on the web and even appears in The Hindu)
Why Hindu ? Go to the Carnatica website and you'll find even the great Smt. Sowmya saying it - that's how I got to think that "shadjamam" and "panchamam" was correct until somebody disabused me of that notion. I think I've stayed "mum" for long enough about it . It is indeed pervasive.

Perhaps there's a tendency among Tamilians to add an extra "am" to everything, even when the word ends with an "a". For example I've seen some folks refers to pallavi manipulations pratiloma and anuloma as anulomam and pratilomam. Totally redundant and erroneous, no ? One might even accidentally stretch it to the names of the various types of cancers like melanomam, sarcomam, squamous cell carcinomam, etc...

....LOL!!!

In fact, this kind of usage is a carcinomam that is very pervasive.

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 20 May 2009, 04:38

When I was young, a teenager came from Delhi to Madurai and was trying to pick up tamizh words. "Don't most tamizh words end in 'um'? This temple-um is looking beautifu-lum!" he exclaimed.

bilahari · Post by **bilahari** » 20 May 2009, 06:51

And when my sister and I were young, every time we heard Hindi announcements in Air India when we travelled to India, we would wonder if Hindi were a contraction of Tamil words (namaskAr instead of namaskAram, vimAn instead of vimAnam), so the ignorance is bidirectional!

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 20 May 2009, 07:38

True

srkris · Post by **srkris** » 21 May 2009, 03:32

namaskAram in sanskrit is just the neutral equivalent of namaskAra. Same way for vimAnam, anulomam, pratilomam, swargam, narakam, yuddham, shabdam, shadjam, rishabam..

You have masc, fem and neutral nouns in sanskrit. Krishna is masculine, krishnaa is feminine, krishnam is neutral.

Tamil usually uses the neutral form of sanskrit nouns it borrows.

binmux · Post by **binmux** » 21 May 2009, 05:28

bilahari wrote:And when my sister and I were young, every time we heard Hindi announcements in Air India when we travelled to India, we would wonder if Hindi were a contraction of Tamil words (namaskAr instead of namaskAram, vimAn instead of vimAnam), so the ignorance is bidirectional!

The example that comes to mind immediately is in the Mahabharatha serial - calling Karnan as Karn

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 21 May 2009, 07:24

srkris,
Thanks. Now I get it. You give some good examples.

girish_a · Post by **girish_a** » 21 May 2009, 14:31

binmux wrote: The example that comes to mind immediately is in the Mahabharatha serial - calling Karnan as Karn

And your amusement at the Hindi pronunciation brings a smile to me, because "Karnan" sounds strange as well

To a Kannadiga, "Karna" is the correct pronunciation. I often wonder why in tamil, you add an "an" to names, like Raman, Lakshmanan, Srinivasan etc.

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 21 May 2009, 16:26

girish_a wrote:To a Kannadiga, "Karna" is the correct pronunciation.

I find Kannada pronunciation "feminizes" all nouns by extending the aa at the end of it, even male ones. LIke "Shaileshaa" or "Ganeshaa". In Sanskrit it should be a very short 'a' (like the continental european 'e') at the end of male names.

This "feminization" is true of the anglicized names too. Like say yoga. Both the hindi version yOg as well as the english version yogA are wrong. The correct version is yOga.

Just curious, how do you aurally distinguish in Kannada between Krishna the man and Krishnaa the woman ?

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 21 May 2009, 16:34

Uday_Shankar wrote:Both the hindi version yOg as well as the english version yogA are wrong.

And the Tamil version "yOhA" is the wrongest of all

.

girish_a · Post by **girish_a** » 21 May 2009, 19:15

Uday_Shankar wrote:
girish_a wrote:To a Kannadiga, "Karna" is the correct pronunciation.
I find Kannada pronunciation "feminizes" all nouns by extending the aa at the end of it, even male ones. LIke "Shaileshaa" or "Ganeshaa". In Sanskrit it should be a very short 'a' (like the continental european 'e') at the end of male names.

This "feminization" is true of the anglicized names too. Like say yoga. Both the hindi version yOg as well as the english version yogA are wrong. The correct version is yOga.

Just curious, how do you aurally distinguish in Kannada between Krishna the man and Krishnaa the woman ?

In spoken Kannada, there is not much elongation of the "akaara" at the end of male names, but it is very evident when Kannada songs are sung. AFAIK, there is no distinction in Kannada between names pronounced with shortened and elongated "akaaras". This seems to be a purely Sanskrit language feature.

However, a name can be feminized by substituting the Sanskrit "aa" with an "ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â©".
Example: Krishna is masculine, Krishne is feminine.

The "ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â©" is not necessarily used when male and female names sound similar. Even exclusively feminine names like "Radha" or "Yashodha" may be pronounced as "Radhe" or "Yashodhe" or "Seethe". But this usage is usually not employed during ordinary conversation, in which the "aa" variant is more appropriate. However, it is extensively found in poetic/literary contexts (Jagadoddharana Aadisidalu Yashodhe).