Hapax Phonoumena

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Chuma
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Re: Hapax Phonoumena

Post by Chuma »

Here in Northern Sweden, there's the rapid-inhalation-sound meaning "yes", to add another to the odd interjections.

Trying to think of other Swedish examples - there are some sounds that are only found in loanwords, so for example "browser" has both [R] and the fairly unusual [au]. Language authorities suggest webbläsare "web reader", which ironically also contain an exotic phoneme, [w]. Then there's the long front [a:], only found in aha and some foreign names, that I can think of.

We also have unique letters - the German ü is basically only used in the word müsli (and some names). I guess English has a similar situation in "naïve", although you might not count that as a separate letter.

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Kohorik
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Re: Hapax Phonoumena

Post by Kohorik »

Chuma wrote: Then there's the long front [a:], only found in aha and some foreign names, that I can think of.
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Re: Hapax Phonoumena

Post by Alon »

In Russian, the sound represented by the letter ы, [ɨ], is in complementary distribution with /i/ (it occurs only after hard consonants), with one exception: in the name of the letter, it occurs as [ɨ], while the name of the letter и is .

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Re: Hapax Phonoumena

Post by jal »

In Dutch, long vowels only occur in French loans, e.g. [bɛːʒə] (which incidently also has an otherwise foreign [ʒ]). Dutch [w] only occurs syllable final* after front vowels, and isn't particularly rare there, but it's unclear what it's an allophone of, if any. I can't think of another rare phoneme that isn't (part of) an interjection or a loan.
*Note that syllabification of intervocalic consonants is a tricky thing in Dutch, and I won't touch it here.


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Nortaneous
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Re: Hapax Phonoumena

Post by Nortaneous »

Alon wrote:In Russian, the sound represented by the letter ы, [ɨ], is in complementary distribution with /i/ (it occurs only after hard consonants), with one exception: in the name of the letter, it occurs as [ɨ], while the name of the letter и is .

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Qwynegold
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Re: Hapax Phonoumena

Post by Qwynegold »

Chuma wrote:"browser" has both [R] and the fairly unusual [au].
Do you mean voiced uvular fricative??
Chuma wrote:Language authorities suggest webbläsare "web reader", which ironically also contain an exotic phoneme, [w].
Okay, W is a letter and not a phoneme. It's pronounced [v~ʋ].
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Re: Hapax Phonoumena

Post by Curlyjimsam »

/x/ is arguably one for me in English - I think I only have it consistently in loch.

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Re: Hapax Phonoumena

Post by mèþru »

I though most native speakers outside of Scotland and Ireland pronounce all instances of voiceless velar/uvular fricatives as /k/ or /h/, like with German names. Besides loanwords from Celtic languages and German, there is also the infamous Hanukkah/Chanukah and chutzpah from Yiddish. Ever worse, for Hebrew speakers, is English khaki, which is pronounced with a /k/, like the Hebrew word for poop. English speakers tend to nativise loanwords.
ìtsanso, God In The Mountain, may our names inspire the deepest feelings of fear in urkos and all his ilk, for we have saved another man from his lies! I welcome back to the feast hall kal, who will never gamble again! May the eleven gods bless him!
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Re: Hapax Phonoumena

Post by Vijay »

mèþru wrote:Ever worse, for Hebrew speakers, is English khaki, which is pronounced with a /k/, like the Hebrew word for poop. English speakers tend to nativise loanwords.
Khaki is from Hindi/Urdu. Speakers of that language tend to pronounce that sound as [kʰ].

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Re: Hapax Phonoumena

Post by Whimemsz »

(Most dialects of) Ojibwe only have /h/ in a handful of interjections, e.g. ahaaw, "okay;" haawn!, "fire! go!"; hay' "darn it! (after making a mistake)". The last two also have unique clusters, /wn/ and /jʔ/. Some dialects have additional onomatopoeic words with /h/, e.g. Odawa/Eastern Ojibwe waahoonwe(nh), "whippoorwill"

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Re: Hapax Phonoumena

Post by mèþru »

In Hebrew, חאקי khaki is pronounced with a back fricative (velar, uvular or pharyngeal depending on the speaker, but most pronounce it as a uvular): /χa.ki/
ìtsanso, God In The Mountain, may our names inspire the deepest feelings of fear in urkos and all his ilk, for we have saved another man from his lies! I welcome back to the feast hall kal, who will never gamble again! May the eleven gods bless him!
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Whimemsz
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Re: Hapax Phonoumena

Post by Whimemsz »

Whimemsz wrote:(Most dialects of) Ojibwe only have /h/ in a handful of interjections, e.g. ahaaw, "okay;" haawn!, "fire! go!"; hay' "darn it! (after making a mistake)". The last two also have unique clusters, /wn/ and /jʔ/. Some dialects have additional onomatopoeic words with /h/, e.g. Odawa/Eastern Ojibwe waahoonwe(nh), "whippoorwill"
Oh, also, Eastern Ojibwe has /l/ only in loan words, except for one onomatopoeic bird name: kookoolii, "bobwhite"

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