Showing posts with label articulation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label articulation. Show all posts

Thursday, November 25, 2010

What's the meaning of this?

One of the distinctive features of the Sumi language is its uvular stop series - a voiceless unaspirated uvular stop /q/ and a voiced aspirated uvular stop /qh/, which are produced by making a closure in the oral cavity (mouth) using the back of the tongue and the uvula (right at the back of the mouth). Having studied and taught phonetics, I am familiar with the mechanism of producing such stops, though mine are certainly not identical to those produced by native speakers.

Importantly, these uvular stops contrast with the velar stops /k/ and /kh/, meaning that there is a difference in meaning between words like akhi 'bee' and aqhi 'moon'.

I'm still having a lot of trouble asking in Sumi for the meaning of something - one of the most useful questions when you're studying a foreign language. Though there a few ways to do it, most forms go something like this:

Hi ye kiu kiqi kea?

I'd post an audio recording of how I say it, and how it should be said if I could.