A phonological and phonetic description of Sumi, a Tibeto-Burman language of Nagaland

So I should probably apologise / apologize for my lack of updates the past year or so. It's been pretty crazy since I started grad school - I'd have to spend many a blog post explaining all the wonderful things I've been able to do since I started in the linguistics PhD programme here at the University of Oregon.

In the meantime, in the 'American' spirit of self-promotion, I thought I should mention that I finally finished revising my University of Melbourne MA thesis A phonological and phonetic description of Sumi, a Tibeto-Burman language of Nagaland and got it published with Asia-Pacific Linguistics in Canberra.

It's an open access ebook (print on demand), and you can download it right here at the ANU digital collections page here.

I have too many people to thank for this, especially my family who've supported me all through this crazy journey, as well as the Sumi community / my Sumi family. I'm so thankful for all the amazing people I've met along the way, and all the help I've received in making this possible. Noshikimithi va na!

A short note on Dean Frenkel and whistling

I wasn't planning on writing anything about Dean Frenkel, whom the Age has described as an "expert speech analyst and vocal instructor" and who has released recently released a book titled Evolution of speech. I'm in a fairly remote place in India, without constant electricity and I've been down with a cold. I don't want to waste my time on the internet on this guy.

But I am angry. I just read Mr Frenkel's reply to a post by Aidan Wilson on Crikey's language blog Fully (sic) that criticises his recent claims and book.

I don't care what Mr Frenkel's qualifications are or what his educational background is. I *really* don't care that he's not a linguist or speech pathologist (I am aware of the hubris of many a linguist). But he writes about topics and make bold claims that even linguists would not have any confidence talking about, and worse, makes claims that can be easily disproved.

For instance, he writes:
It is perfectly reasonable to suggest that whistling as a child helps to train the articulation of ‘W’s for later in life. How does [Wilson] think the fine muscles of the lips are trained?

How is it 'perfectly reasonable' to suggest this?

The 'w' sound in English involves a few things: (1) pulmonic egressive air stream (air coming from the lungs); (2) a vibrating glottis; (3) the back of the tongue moving towards the velum; and (4) rounding of the lips.

Now I've never had problems producing a 'w' sound, which requires the movement of the lips. Incidentally, I've never had trouble producing a 'b' sound, or 'p' sound, which also require the movement of the lips.

But for the life of me, I cannot whistle.