!X?? phonology

[pharazon]

Yes, you read right. I got curious about it, and I managed to procure a book on it. Since I'm tired, I won't give lots of details.

Tones
There are four phonemic tones:

High: //?o
Mid: tsh?a
Mid-falling: //?o
Low: tsh?a

Vowels
<a e i o u> = /a E i O u/

Vowels can be plain (s?o), nasalized (g?u~), breathy (g?hm), pharyngealized (q?_a), glottalized (t??i), or one of 39 combinations of those (like pharyngealized breathy nasalized: dza?_i~); however, only a, o, u can be pharyngealized.

Consonants

Enough of those wussy vowels: clicks!

There are five main clicks: (affricated) bilabial (&#664;), (unaffricated) palato-dental (&#x01c2;), (aff.) lamino-dental (/), (aff.) apico-alveolar (//), (unaff.) apico-alveolar (!).

Where the insanity really comes from is the 16 possible secondary articulations, which can occur with any click (demonstrated on !):

Unaspirated voiceless velar stop: !??
Voiced: !g??
Voiced nasalized: !n??
Preglottalized and nasalized: ?!n?hn
Voiceless nasalized: !nh?_m
Voiceless uvular stop: !q?he
Prenasalized voiced uvular: N!G?_?
Aspirated uvular stop: !qh?a
Uvular fricative: !x??
Ejective uvular stop: !q??ma
Ejective uvular affricate: !kx??a
Delayed (glottal) aspiration: !h?a
Glottal stop: !???
Voiced and uvular fricative: g!x?n
Voiced aspirated: g!h??
Voiced and ejective uvular affricate: g!kx???

As for pulmonic consonants (even they're all screwed up):

Voiceless unaspirated stops/affricate: p [marginal phoneme], t (lamino-dental), ts (lamino-post-dental), k, q
Voiceless aspirated: ph [marginal], th, tsh, kh, qh
Voiced: b, d, dz, g, G (uvular; tends to be prenasalized), dy (palatalized d)
Voiced and aspirated: dth, dtsh
With uvular frication: tx, tsx
Voiced with uvular frication: dtx, dtsx
Ejectives: ts?, kx?, q? [marginal]
Voiced and ejective: dts?, gkx?
Ejective with (ejective) uvular affrication: t?kx?, ts?kx?
Voiced with ejective and uvular affrication: dt?kx?, dts?kx?
Fricatives: s, x (velar)
Nasals: m, n (apical), ? (palatal), ?m, ?n (glottalized)
Liquid: l (apical)

There's other stuff too, like on phonological constraints: the consonants ? and dy (and dialectically l) only occur intervocalically. Even more strangely, only 6 consonants can occur intervocalically at all: those plus m, n, and b, and m and n are the only ones that can occur finally!

Since I'm tired, I won't give lots of details.

...

I think that's enough. Feel free to ask questions (especially Eddy; I even have a bit of grammar information); there's 200 pages of this...


Edit: Apparently my beautiful Unicode doesn't want to work, so: an umlauted vowel is supposed be a macron, _ after a vowel should be a tilde below, ~ after a tilde above, ? should be the IPA symbol for /J/, the bilabial click is a bullseye, the palatoalveolar is a = with a | through it, and the "nh" in the voiceless nasalized click accompaniment should be "n + (ring below for voiceless)".

[Nuntar]

What does "with uvular frication" (or, for that matter, affrication, whether ejective or not) mean?

That is one weird phonology. No conlanger would dare to invent it.

[Mecislau]

Or, if you just want them listed, here's a post I did a while ago:

Clicks

• Dental Voiceless Affricated Click
• Dental Voiceless Aspirated Affricated Click
• Dental Voiced Affricated Click
• Dental Breathy Voiced Affricated Click
• Dental Nasalized Voiceless Aspirated Affricated Click
• Dental Nasalized Glottalized Voiceless Affricated Click
• Dental Nasalized Voiced Affricated Click
• Dental Nasalized Breathy Voiced Affricated Click
• Dental Nasalized and Velarized Glottalized Voiceless Affricated Click
• Dental Velarized Voiceless Affricated Click
• Dental Velarized Voiced Affricated Click
• Dental Velarized Glottalized Voiced Affricated Click
• Alveolar Voiceless Click
• Alveolar Voiceless Aspirated Click
• Alveolar Voiced Click
• Alveolar Breathy Voiced Click
• Alveolar Nasalized Voiceless Aspirated Click
• Alveolar Nasalized Glottalized Voiceless Click
• Alveolar Nasalized Voiced Click
• Alveolar Nasalized Breathy Voiced Click
• Alveolar Nasalized and Velarized Glottalized Voiceless Click
• Alveolar Velarized Voiceless Click
• Alveolar Velarized Voiced Click
• Alveolar Velarized Glottalized Voiced Click
• Palatal Voiceless Click
• Palatal Voiceless Aspirated Click
• Palatal Voiced Click
• Palatal Breathy Voiced Click
• Palatal Voiceless Lateral Affricated Click
• Palatal Voiceless Aspirated Lateral Affricated Click
• Palatal Voiced Lateral Affricated Click
• Palatal Breathy Voiced Lateral Affricated Click
• Palatal Nasalized Voiceless Aspirated Click
• Palatal Nasalized Glottalized Voiceless Click
• Palatal Nasalized Voiced Click
• Palatal Nasalized Breathy Voiced Click
• Palatal Nasalized Voiceless Aspirated Lateral Affricated Click
• Palatal Nasalized Glottalized Voiceless Lateral Affricated Click
• Palatal Nasalized Voiced Lateral Affricated Click
• Palatal Nasalized Breathy Voiced Lateral Affricated Click
• Palatal Nasalized and Velarized Glottalized Voiceless Click
• Palatal Nasalized and Velarized Glottalized Voiceless Lateral Affricated Click
• Palatal Velarized Voiceless Click
• Palatal Velarized Voiced Click
• Palatal Velarized Glottalized Voiced Click
• Palatal Velarized Voiceless Lateral Affricated Click
• Palatal Velarized Voiced Lateral Affricated Click
• Palatal Velarized Glottalized Voiced Lateral Affricated Click

Pulmonic Consonants

• Bilabial Voiceless Plosive
• Bilabial Voiceless Aspirated Plosive
• Bilabial Voiced Plosive
• Bilabial Voiced Ejective Stop
• Bilabial Voiced Nasal
• Bilabial Long Voiced Nasal (that's a long [m])
• Bilabial Breathy Voiced Nasal
• Bilabial Laryngealized Voiced Nasal (I have no idea what laryngealization is)
• Alveolar Voiceless Plosive
• Alveolar Voiceless Aspirated Plosive
• Alveolar Voiced Plosive
• Alveolar Voiceless Ejective Stop
• Alveolar Voiced Ejective Stop
• Alveolar Voiceless Sibilant Affricate (that's [ts])
• Alveolar Voiceless Aspirated Sibilant Affricate
• Alveolar Voiceless Sibilant Ejective Affricate
• Alveolar Breathy Voiced Sibilant Affricate (that's [dz], with a breathy [d])
• Alveolar Voiced Sibilant Ejective Affricate
• Alveolar Voiceless Sibilant Fricative (that's [s])
• Alveolar Voiced Sibilant Fricative
• Alveolar Voiced Nasal
• Alveolar Voiced Flap
• Alveolar Velarized Voiceless Plosive
• Alveolar Velarized Voiced Plosive
• Alveolar Velarized Voiceless Sibilant Affricate (velarized [ts])
• Alveolar Velarized Voiced Sibilant Affricate
• Palato-Alveolar Voiceless Sibilant Affricate ([tS])
• Palato-Alveolar Voiceless Aspirated Sibilant Affricate
• Palato-Alveolar Voiceless Sibilant Ejective Affricate
• Palato-Alveolar Breathy Voiced Sibilant Affricate ([dZ])
• Palato-Alveolar Voiced Sibilant Ejectice Affricate
• Palato-Alveolar Voiceless Sibilant Fricative ([S])
• Palato-Alveolar Voiced Sibilant Fricative ([Z])
• Palato-Alveolar Velarized Voiceless Sibilant Affricate
• Palato-Alveolar Velarized Voiced Sibilant Affricate
• Palatal Voiced Central Approximant ([j])
• Velar Voiceless Plosive ([k])
• Velar Voiceless Aspirated Plosive
• Velar Voiced Plosive ([g])
• Velar Breathy Voiced Plosive
• Velar Voiceless Ejective Stop
• Velar Voiced Ejective Stop
• Velar Voiceless Non-Silibant Fricative ([x])
• Velar Voiced Nasal
• Velar Pharyngealized Voiced Nasal
• Glottal Voiced Non-Silibant Fricative (says here it varies in place of articulation)
• Labial-velar Voiced Central Approximant ([w])

(I hope this matches up with Pharazon's phonology...)

I got all of the consonants in a chart. I'll scan it in today and post it later.

Pharazon, are you gonna add all this to your site

What's the book called?

[Aurora Rossa]

That is awesome! I'd lose to see some grammatical info.

[pharazon]

Pharazon, are you gonna add all this to your site

Probably ... eventually.

What's the book called?

Phonetic and phonological studies of !X?? Bushman (Traill).

[Mecislau]

Okay, here's the chart:

http://www.angelfire.com/alt2/malknarh/xoo.jpg

(Note: ~200KB)

Ignore the top part (that's Rotokas).

[EDIT: Also note that this is done in 1979 IPA... ]

[Aurora Rossa]

That's actually !Xũ, a language closely related to Ju|'h?asi.

[pharazon]

Okay, here's the chart:

http://www.angelfire.com/alt2/malknarh/xoo.jpg

(Note: ~200KB)

Ignore the top part (that's Rotokas).

[EDIT: Also note that this is done in 1979 IPA... ]

Well, it's certainly different than mine (which is still better! ), but it's not surprising that some of the weird consonants are analyzed differently, and the orthography makes them look more different too (i.e. the "voiced ejectives", which are actually impossible; the voicing stops before the ejection, thus the orthography <dts?>, etc.).

[pharazon]

That's actually !Xũ, a language closely related to Ju|'h?asi.

D'oh, I was going to mention that too but I forgot. Ah well.

[Mecislau]

That's actually !Xũ, a language closely related to Ju|'h?asi.

You sure? I always though !Xũ was an alternate spelling for !X??...

Typing !Xũ into the Ethnologue doesn't get me anything though. And it lists the following as being related to Ju|'h?asi (although they call it Ju/'hoan, which they say is their name for themselves):

!O!UNG [OUN] (Angola)
'AKHOE [AKE] (Namibia)
=/KX'AU//'EIN [AUE] (Namibia)
JU/'HOAN [KTZ] (Botswana)
KUNG-EKOKA [KNW] (Namibia)
MALIGO [MWJ] (Angola)
VASEKELA BUSHMAN [VAJ] (Namibia)

I don't see !Xu in there...



But, it says the following are alternate nams for Ju/'hoan: X? and !Xo. So where does !Xũ come from?



EDIT: Never mind, I found it. It was an alternate name for Kung-Ekoka.

But, the chart is interesting nonetheless....

[CountJordan]

!Xoo always looked... strange but in a good way.

But my favorite African language is Xhosa or Zulu.

[Aurora Rossa]

!Xũ is a Northern Khoisan language and !X?? is a Southern Khoisan language. They have similar names, but they are on different branches of the Khoisan family, like English and French are in the same family, but on different branches.

[Soap]

So which one is it that has the largest phonology? The book seems to be saying that it is !Xu ... so did they make the same mistake?

[Tupu]

Could someone explain to me what are pulmonic consonants? Are they the ones where the sounds are released by inhaling the air, rather than exhaling?

[pharazon]

Could someone explain to me what are pulmonic consonants? Are they the ones where the sounds are released by inhaling the air, rather than exhaling?

No, those are implosives. Pulmonic consonants are just those whose airstream originates in the lungs; the large majority of the world's consonants are pulmonic (the only European langs I can think of with one are certain Italian dialects with implosive d). The non-pulmonic consonants are: clicks (velaric ingressive), implosives (glottalic ingressive), and ejectives (glottalic egressive).

[Aurora Rossa]

the only European langs I can think of with one are certain Italian dialects with implosive d

I believe you're thinking of Sindhi, which isn't limited to /d_</. There's imploded /b d J\ g/ and /d`/, I believe.

[pharazon]

the only European langs I can think of with one are certain Italian dialects with implosive d

I believe you're thinking of Sindhi, which isn't limited to /d_</. There's imploded /b d J\ g/ and /d`/, I believe.

No, Sardinian (not really a dialect) and some Italian dialects have /d_</ also, e.g. from Latin /ll/. I did say European rather than IE, since I seemed to remember some Indo-Aryan langs with implosives. But either way, I just meant that they're not very common compared to pulmonic consonants, especially in the languages that most people are familiar with (not to be Eurocentric... ).

[Drydic]

the only European langs I can think of with one are certain Italian dialects with implosive d

I believe you're thinking of Sindhi, which isn't limited to /d_</. There's imploded /b d J\ g/ and /d`/, I believe.

No, Sardinian (not really a dialect) and some Italian dialects have /d_</ also, e.g. from Latin /ll/. I did say European rather than IE, since I seemed to remember some Indo-Aryan langs with implosives. But either way, I just meant that they're not very common compared to pulmonic consonants, especially in the languages that most people are familiar with (not to be Eurocentric... ).

My sources say that Sardinian -dd- from -LL- is a retroflex stop, not implosive.

[Salmoneus]

Mark says they're implosive, if i recall. I could be wrong, though.

But of course, there are four major different sardinian dialects, some of which are no closer to each other than to standard italian, and a large number of odder minority dialects (eg, i recall there's one dialect in the north that's a mixture of a sardinian dialect with a pisan/genoan (can't remember which) dialect, with the language of jewish refugees from arabic spain). So I wouldn't be all that surprised if there were a couple of phonological differences across the island.

[Drydic]

Mark says they're implosive, if i recall. I could be wrong, though.

But of course, there are four major different sardinian dialects, some of which are no closer to each other than to standard italian, and a large number of odder minority dialects (eg, i recall there's one dialect in the north that's a mixture of a sardinian dialect with a pisan/genoan (can't remember which) dialect, with the language of jewish refugees from arabic spain). So I wouldn't be all that surprised if there were a couple of phonological differences across the island.

My source here is THE ROMANCE LANGUAGES the Sardinian ariticle, by Michael Jones. He states that there are 5 varieties of Sard on the island: Logudorese, Nuorese, Campiadanese, Sassarese, and Gallurese. His description fits, in his own words, only Nuorese, Campiadanese, and Logudorese. He says absolutely nothing about a change in the pronounciation of /d`d`/ (the phoneme only occurs doubled). He does, however go to great lengths to describe the loss of /n/, fricitivisation of /b, d, g/ to /B, D, G/ and other changes. I don't know about Sassarese and Gallurese, but the other dialects don't have a change for this.

[pharazon]

Drydic_guy is right, I did mean retroflex. Maybe there're some areas with d_>, but I don't know about them.

[pharazon]

That is awesome! I'd lose to see some grammatical info.

My book is a phonology one, so there's only a sketch.

Many nouns can be broken down into root + classifier; there are thirty noun classes, and as in Swahili, the class changes for number (the functions of the classes aren't clear, but they appear to have distinguished animacy at one point):

/n?-le 'stone', /n?-n 'stones'
dz?he 'hole', dz?ha_ 'holes'

It's important to note that not all nouns are not in the class system; these usually form the plural with the suffix -t?, though there are other ways:

!kx??m 'bead', !kx??mt? 'beads'
@x?a 'older brother', @x?at? 'older brothers'
!?o 'knife', |=n?n 'knives' (btw, I'm at school, so |= is the palatoalveolar click)

Also, some nouns do both:

//?_i 'lion', //?_bat? 'lions'

There's an 'alliterative concordial system', which I found quite interesting. Basically, certain words (transitive verbs, relative pronouns, demonstratives, etc.) have to agree with the noun they modify by taking a suffix that contains the same vowel (or n) as that noun's classifier affix. So, the verb q?la 'dig' can appear as qali, qala, qale, qalu, or qan, based on the noun's class marker (though which noun, I'm not sure).

As for nouns not in the class system, they still use the concordial system, sometimes based on a classifier affix that has become part of the stem: the plural of |=?i 'collar bone' is |=?it?, with no apparent class identification, but it still falls in causes Class 1 agreement (i.e. with -i-: qali). All loanwords are in Class 3 (-e-: qale).

[Soap]

That all sounds a lot like Swahili with suffixes instead of prefixes. So I suppose !Xoo might have adopted the system from the Bantu languages? I know it is found in West Africa as well, so it wouldn't seem likely that it would go in the other direction.

In fact, it also sounds a lot like IE with noun classes instead of genders.

[finlay]

How do you pronounce clicks and implosives? I've never quite understood it, having no frame of reference. I think I may have clicks about right, though.
And how do you pronounce !Xóõ (the name) properly?

[Mecislau]

How do you pronounce clicks and implosives? I've never quite understood it, having no frame of reference. I think I may have clicks about right, though.

Try the click recordings here on the basic IPA site: http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/ipa/full/

Or the IPA on steroids site (as apparently people now seem to be calling it), here (under construction): http://scorpius.spaceports.com/~pharazo/ipa/ipa.htm

And how do you pronounce !X?? (the name) properly?

In X-SAMOA:

/!XO_H_~/

(I think ?? is just a way of writing a single sound without using piled diacritics... if they're seperate, please correct me )