are there easier to pronounce things ?

Discussion of natural languages, or language in general.
Post Reply
User avatar
Torco
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 2372
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2007 10:45 pm
Location: Santiago de Chile

are there easier to pronounce things ?

Post by Torco »

Despite being into languages and conlangs and conworlds for... hell, have I been into this ten years? Seems I have. Well then despite being interested in languages and constructed worlds and so on, this hobby has caused in me an unusually small increase in actual knowledge about linguistics: I'm quite conversant in it, and probably know more about it than 95% of the other non-experts, but that's about it. As a consequence, when I talk about linguistics with other conlangers I'm always the one that knows the least.

This being the case, I'm sure some of you fine folk should know the answer to a question that just popped into my head: Are some sounds easier to pronounce than others? Because on the one hand, of course not: I find the approximant rhotic sonds of english weird and whenever I produce them I can't help but produce a [w] sound at the end, but I'm sure native english speakers find it perfectly normal: hell, brits even have epenthetic rhotics in places! So sometimes when you find a sound harder to produce it's just you're not used to it as compared to the sounds of your own language

But on the other hand, some sounds *seem* more complicated than others even between one's own language: it feels to me as if [a] is easier than [tS] or [ks], both sounds of my native spanish, and if someone were to mispronounce them I should think that's expectable, whereas if someone can't pronounce a simple [o] vowel I'd be surprised at how incapable he was at producing speech. And it seems as if some sounds you find in a vast fraction of existing languages and others are much rarer, it could be cause the human mouth is just better at making some sounds than other sounds: and one should think so too, after all, the mouth is a specific structure with specific mechanical and physical properties, just like my car is excellent at taking you from place to place in a city, it's apalling at pulling a plow and only adequate at moving all your belongings to your new apartment.

User avatar
Salmoneus
Sanno
Sanno
Posts: 3197
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2004 5:00 pm
Location: One of the dark places of the world

Re: are there easier to pronounce things ?

Post by Salmoneus »

Yes, some sounds are easier than others.

This is shown by:
a) some sounds are typically aquired much later in child language development
b) some sounds are more frequently subject to anomolous "speech defects" in adulthood
c) some sounds seem to endure less long in any given language, more rapidly being replaced by other sounds
d) some sounds are more likely to occur only in particular dialects of a language, with variants found in even closely-related dialects
e) some sounds are found in relatively few languages

There are some sounds where these bits of evidence don't add up - clicks, for instance, occur in few languages, but seem relatively stable over time. Sibilants are prone to speech impediments, but are widespread and longlived. But most often these things go together, and the most parsimonious explanation is simply that these sounds are relatively difficult to make (or, at least, more difficult than some close alternative). Plus, those sounds are often those that are 'logically' hardest on the basis of complexity of production. So, to take your example, English /r/:
- is one of the last sounds correctly aquired by children ("I'm weeeally sowwy...")
- is a sound that is relatively commonly the subject of a 'speech defect' in adulthood
- has splintered into half a dozen different realisations in different dialects, in an ongoing process (c.f. the spread of labiodental /r/ in several British dialects)
- is rare in world languages

Simple explanation: it's a hard sound! (either to make or to hear).
Blog: [url]http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/[/url]

But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!

User avatar
Pole, the
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1606
Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2012 9:50 am

Re: are there easier to pronounce things ?

Post by Pole, the »

But on the other hand, some sounds *seem* more complicated than others even between one's own language: it feels to me as if [a] is easier than [tS] or [ks], both sounds of my native spanish, and if someone were to mispronounce them I should think that's expectable, whereas if someone can't pronounce a simple [o] vowel I'd be surprised at how incapable he was at producing speech.
I'd actually be impressed if an average Anglophone managed to pronounce all of /a e i o u/ right on the first try without having a prior introduction to linguistics, due to how the closest equivalents of /e o/ are diphthongized in almost all varieties of English and how the closest equivalents of /a u/ are either fronted or diphthongized or both in most varieties. (Also, the vowel reduction.)
The conlanger formerly known as “the conlanger formerly known as Pole, the”.

If we don't study the mistakes of the future we're doomed to repeat them for the first time.

User avatar
bbbosborne
Sanci
Sanci
Posts: 70
Joined: Mon Jul 03, 2017 6:44 pm

Re: are there easier to pronounce things ?

Post by bbbosborne »

absolutely. some sounds are easier to pronounce.

the schwa and /o/ immediately pop into my head. these sounds don't require extremely strange tongue position or mouth shape, and are rather natural or instinctive.
however, sounds such as certain clicks or pharyngealized consonants can be very difficult. these sounds have awkward movements or constrictions that can be very foreign or difficult to some people.

personally, I struggle with dental fricatives since my native language doesn't have them, and I lived ten years not knowing I was pronouncing words like "three" and "tooth" completely wrong (sree and toof). hell, I still struggle and stutter sometimes lol.

bbb
Last edited by bbbosborne on Mon Nov 06, 2017 9:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Image

zompist
Boardlord
Boardlord
Posts: 3368
Joined: Thu Sep 12, 2002 8:26 pm
Location: In the den
Contact:

Re: are there easier to pronounce things ?

Post by zompist »

One theory is that the easiest sounds to learn (as opposed to produce) are those where you can see how they're made. So children learn /p/ before /t/ before /k/.

User avatar
Imralu
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1640
Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2006 9:14 pm
Location: Berlin, Germany

Re: are there easier to pronounce things ?

Post by Imralu »

Pole, the wrote:
But on the other hand, some sounds *seem* more complicated than others even between one's own language: it feels to me as if [a] is easier than [tS] or [ks], both sounds of my native spanish, and if someone were to mispronounce them I should think that's expectable, whereas if someone can't pronounce a simple [o] vowel I'd be surprised at how incapable he was at producing speech.
I'd actually be impressed if an average Anglophone managed to pronounce all of /a e i o u/ right on the first try without having a prior introduction to linguistics, due to how the closest equivalents of /e o/ are diphthongized in almost all varieties of English and how the closest equivalents of /a u/ are either fronted or diphthongized or both in most varieties. (Also, the vowel reduction.)
Haha, I'm remembering my American friend trying to pronounce schon and just saying "shown".
Glossing Abbreviations: COMP = comparative, C = complementiser, ACS / ICS = accessible / inaccessible, GDV = gerundive, SPEC / NSPC = specific / non-specific
________
MY MUSIC

User avatar
Zaarin
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1136
Joined: Sun Aug 15, 2010 5:00 pm

Re: are there easier to pronounce things ?

Post by Zaarin »

Pole, the wrote:
But on the other hand, some sounds *seem* more complicated than others even between one's own language: it feels to me as if [a] is easier than [tS] or [ks], both sounds of my native spanish, and if someone were to mispronounce them I should think that's expectable, whereas if someone can't pronounce a simple [o] vowel I'd be surprised at how incapable he was at producing speech.
I'd actually be impressed if an average Anglophone managed to pronounce all of /a e i o u/ right on the first try without having a prior introduction to linguistics, due to how the closest equivalents of /e o/ are diphthongized in almost all varieties of English and how the closest equivalents of /a u/ are either fronted or diphthongized or both in most varieties. (Also, the vowel reduction.)
Indeed, it took me a lot of work to learn how to not diphthongize /o/, and I'm still not entirely convinced my /e/ isn't more like /ɛ~e̞/.
"But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”

User avatar
Torco
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 2372
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2007 10:45 pm
Location: Santiago de Chile

Re: are there easier to pronounce things ?

Post by Torco »

very true, english speakers are always pronouncing monopthongs as dipthongs.

why, thank you, that's informative. I was hesitant to arrive at this conclusion precisely because of the counterexamples Sal points out: clicks are weird as fuck but they seem super stable in those languages that do have them, and so maybe we find them hard for the same reason an american might find simple monopthongs hard. Also, there could be second-order effects at play: maybe there's something about english phonology that makes r a hard sound, whereas some other phonology (maybe richer in approximants, who knows) wouldn't have that effect... though it's harder to imagine what those second order effects might be, and also it seems approximant r is so rare that we wouldn't expect it to appear in these ostensible "r-unsuitable" languages anyway

User avatar
Pole, the
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1606
Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2012 9:50 am

Re: are there easier to pronounce things ?

Post by Pole, the »

why, thank you, that's informative. I was hesitant to arrive at this conclusion precisely because of the counterexamples Sal points out: clicks are weird as fuck but they seem super stable in those languages that do have them, and so maybe we find them hard for the same reason an american might find simple monopthongs hard. Also, there could be second-order effects at play: maybe there's something about english phonology that makes r a hard sound, whereas some other phonology (maybe richer in approximants, who knows) wouldn't have that effect... though it's harder to imagine what those second order effects might be, and also it seems approximant r is so rare that we wouldn't expect it to appear in these ostensible "r-unsuitable" languages anyway
Well, in Polish the default “r” sound is the “trill r”, but it's still a “difficult” sound — one of the latest sound children learn to pronounce (I can recall learning it around the age of four), most commonly substituted with [l] or [j] by children and with [ɹ], [ɰ] or [ʁ] by adults with the speech impediment. Apart from that, the /ɨ/ most foreigners confuse with /i/ and the infamous alveolo-palatals, the Polish phonological system looks quite plain.

(Ah, there's also the issue of /v/ and /w/ that are hard to distinguish by Indians and Finnish people in particular.)
The conlanger formerly known as “the conlanger formerly known as Pole, the”.

If we don't study the mistakes of the future we're doomed to repeat them for the first time.

Post Reply