Japanese "u" and other peculiar things

[theweevil]

So, any comments on the interesting thing japanese has going on with its "u" /ɯᵝ/ and its "r" /ɽ/, I know these are really unique and so transcribing them is a little painful from what I see. Anybody have info on these guys, or for that matter, any other interesting phonemes that strain transcription?

Also, are there any other instances of lip compression such as in the japanese "u"/ɯᵝ/ in other languages, perhaps to a greater degree, maybe even going as far as making it phonemic? Is there any consensus on how something like this arises? Has anyone used this at all in a conlang?

[clawgrip]

Okay, on the subject of weird sounds and Japanese, I am wondering about something. There is a type of phonation or something or other that is very common in Japanese speech to add stress to words, but I have no idea if there is any specific name for it or what.

This video has several examples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbuGCQWBZfQ#t=0m40s

In the video you can hear it clearly, as this comedian is imitating a celebrity and putting particular emphasis on it over and over. But you can hear other people doing as well (at say 2:00 when he says "nee", or a few times when the guy at 2:12 speaks "Yurushite agenai to dame desu yo ne."

How can this be described? Some kind of grunting?

[finlay]

So, any comments on the interesting thing japanese has going on with its "u" /ɯᵝ/ and its "r" /ɽ/, I know these are really unique and so transcribing them is a little painful from what I see. Anybody have info on these guys, or for that matter, any other interesting phonemes that strain transcription?

Also, are there any other instances of lip compression such as in the japanese "u"/ɯᵝ/ in other languages, perhaps to a greater degree, maybe even going as far as making it phonemic? Is there any consensus on how something like this arises? Has anyone used this at all in a conlang?

well... the thing is... people don't write "/ɯᵝ/". they write "/u/". this is how the IPA is supposed to be used. if you are being pedantic about the sound of something you might put it in square brackets (a phonetic transcription, not phonemic). you even noted that it's not phonemic, it's just the usual pronunciation of whatever /u/ is in Japanese.

and the other thing is, IPA cardinal vowels aren't... real. they're simply not. they're phonetic ideals. they're arbitrary. and general variations away from the 'corners', as happens in Japanese, happens all over the place. I've often heard a variant of /ɛ/ in scottish accents that is qualitatively different from the english one, but i don't know how to describe it phonetically because in the IPA they would both be transcribed as [ɛ]. and yet neither of them is [ɛ], because [ɛ] is some kind of impossible ideal. vowels in real languages kind of occupy a vague space in the vowel chart, they're not points. here perhaps the IPA falls short, or perhaps it just does the job it needs to.

also lip compression happens in swedish, among others. afaik it's probably a bigger factor in telling apart what are normally described as /ʉ/ and /y/ than tongue position is. (ʉ has compression, y has strong protrusion)

also also, when japanese people speak english to me and use a japanese-style /u/, it usually sounds fine, natural. yet when a french person does... it's different...

[WeepingElf]

well... the thing is... people don't write "/ɯᵝ/". they write "/u/". this is how the IPA is supposed to be used. if you are being pedantic about the sound of something you might put it in square brackets (a phonetic transcription, not phonemic). you even noted that it's not phonemic, it's just the usual pronunciation of whatever /u/ is in Japanese.

WORD.

[Radius Solis]

On the subject of transcription, Finlay is, of course, correct.

As for the phonetics, though, Japanese /u/ and /r/ are unusual and interesting. The /u/ in particular is so distinctive to the ear that, exposed to some brief snippet of foreign speech on the street in which I understand nothing else, I can ID it as Japanese on that alone.

For phonemes in other languages that "strain transcription", you can hardly get much worse than the bunched r present in much of American English. "It's an approximant whereby the whole tongue is moderately retracted and bunched up, which is commonly described as having the features [+pharyngeal], [+velar], and maybe also [+RTR], and which is also labiodentalized" is not something the IPA can fully encode. Use /r/.

[finlay]

Perhaps I mean that I don't actually have [ u ] in my own accent of English. I have something centralish, which is also how I hear the Japanese sound. They're not quite the same but it sounds more natural than using a back [ u ] in English, for me at least. I also don't think it's universal to have a "compressed back vowel" for all speakers of Japanese. That's just one particularly common but crosslinguistically unusual way of pronouncing it.

Japanese R is also subject to extensive variation – it's usually a tap, which is not unusual, but it's unspecified for laterality, which means that it can be but isn't always a lateral tap, which is indeed unusual. When I went to Korea I found that they had a sound that was also inbetween L and R but was very different – it tended to be an approximant, and was often retroflex (again, might be lateral and might not). I actually thought a few people were speaking an Indian language because it was sometimes quite strongly retroflex.

[GBR]

Okay, on the subject of weird sounds and Japanese, I am wondering about something. There is a type of phonation or something or other that is very common in Japanese speech to add stress to words, but I have no idea if there is any specific name for it or what.

This video has several examples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbuGCQWBZfQ#t=0m40s

In the video you can hear it clearly, as this comedian is imitating a celebrity and putting particular emphasis on it over and over. But you can hear other people doing as well (at say 2:00 when he says "nee", or a few times when the guy at 2:12 speaks "Yurushite agenai to dame desu yo ne."

How can this be described? Some kind of grunting?

Sounds like the guys are engaging their false vocal chords to me, which means it could be -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harsh_voice
Or wait... that's not it. If I try and imitate it feels sub-glottal... hrmm...

[Qwynegold]

I read somewhere that compression is just another word for endolabial. Is that true? Because it also said that back rounded vowels are usually exolabial, and front rounded vowels are usually endolabial in languages that have them, so to me the Japanese /u/ is not that special then. Because this would mean that it's the same lip thingie that we have in Finnish and Swedish and whatnot, only that they have it on a back vowel instead of a front vowel.

[finlay]

I read somewhere that compression is just another word for endolabial. Is that true? Because it also said that back rounded vowels are usually exolabial, and front rounded vowels are usually endolabial in languages that have them, so to me the Japanese /u/ is not that special then. Because this would mean that it's the same lip thingie that we have in Finnish and Swedish and whatnot, only that they have it on a back vowel instead of a front vowel.

right, yeah, i already mentioned that.

edit: 16000th post whoo!

[Qwynegold]

I read somewhere that compression is just another word for endolabial. Is that true? Because it also said that back rounded vowels are usually exolabial, and front rounded vowels are usually endolabial in languages that have them, so to me the Japanese /u/ is not that special then. Because this would mean that it's the same lip thingie that we have in Finnish and Swedish and whatnot, only that they have it on a back vowel instead of a front vowel.

right, yeah, i already mentioned that.

Ah okay, it wasn't crystal. So how come that it's called compression when speaking about Japanese, but endolabial or less rounded in other contexts? It makes it sound like it's two different things. @_@

[Radius Solis]

Ah okay, it wasn't crystal. So how come that it's called compression when speaking about Japanese, but endolabial or less rounded in other contexts? It makes it sound like it's two different things. @_@

No, but you've mixed up the types. Endolabial = more rounded = protruded, exolabial = less rounded = compressed.

[Qwynegold]

Oh huh, I have. It sounds like exolabial should mean more protruded, as exo means outer, doesn't it?

[Morrígan]

Oh huh, I have. It sounds like exolabial should mean more protruded, as exo means outer, doesn't it?

Yes, but it's to do with what part of the lips are doing the articulation: exolabial is compressed, because the outermost part is doing the compression.

[theweevil]

well... the thing is... people don't write "/ɯᵝ/". they write "/u/". this is how the IPA is supposed to be used. if you are being pedantic about the sound of something you might put it in square brackets (a phonetic transcription, not phonemic). you even noted that it's not phonemic, it's just the usual pronunciation of whatever /u/ is in Japanese.

That sounds more like what I meant, my mistake.

and the other thing is, IPA cardinal vowels aren't... real. they're simply not. they're phonetic ideals. they're arbitrary. and general variations away from the 'corners', as happens in Japanese, happens all over the place. I've often heard a variant of /ɛ/ in scottish accents that is qualitatively different from the english one, but i don't know how to describe it phonetically because in the IPA they would both be transcribed as [ɛ]. and yet neither of them is [ɛ], because [ɛ] is some kind of impossible ideal. vowels in real languages kind of occupy a vague space in the vowel chart, they're not points. here perhaps the IPA falls short, or perhaps it just does the job it needs to.

I agree with you there. I think of the IPA vowels and consonants as the "prototypical" example of a given vowel or consonant, each language will have a slight variation on that which is may be audibly noticeable. ( but further than that it becomes splitting hairs kinda, huh?)

[Qwynegold]

Oh huh, I have. It sounds like exolabial should mean more protruded, as exo means outer, doesn't it?

Yes, but it's to do with what part of the lips are doing the articulation: exolabial is compressed, because the outermost part is doing the compression.

Oh I see, okay.