Questions not about German Thread

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Questions not about German Thread

Post by Salmoneus »

Like the German thread, but not for German.

In my case, this isn't so much a question as a cry of woe and a vain appeal to the gods. Irish. Is there anyway humans might be able to speak it? Palatalisation seems vaguely possible in theory if not in practice, but velarisation might as well be telling me to clap with my tail. As for /ɟa̠ːɾˠhəɟ/ and /dʲɔ̝̈x/ and /ɡɨ̞ɾˠtʲ/... you're just mocking me now. I can do /g/, no problem, but beyond that... (and why isn't that velarised, anyway?)

Do people actually do all this stuff? There's no tricks or cheats or anything to translate that into normal stuff that western european tongues can do? I have a kid's learn-irish book somewhere, and I'm pretty sure that leaves all the weird stuff out entirely - presumably children aren't expected to learn the glossogymnastical stuff (huh - didn't realise how dirty that word was 'till I wrote it) until they reach puberty, which is probably only decent.

The fact I'm not confident about phonemic length either isn't a great help, but it's a relatively minor obstacle. And the orthography that's both counterintuitive and inconsistent is frankly no problem at all, given that I can't say any of the words anyway.

I should just try to look at the grammar instead, given that that might actually be comprehensible, but I struggle when I can't at least pretend to be able to pronounce the examples...


Anyway, if anyone has any tips or tricks or one simple thing to make Irish possible, please do share.

Failing that, I'll repeat my request of ten years ago (because I forgot the answer): anyone recommend a book to learn Irish with? Pointless to spend money when it's impossible, I know, but I'm vain and stubborn. I'm obviously OK with understanding grammar and terminology, though i would like something vaguely learn-y and useful rather than just a theoretical grammar textbook or anything.


Anyway, this is a sort of silly and pointless thread I know, but maybe somebody else will have some question about a non-German language at some point and I'll be able to berate them for not using the proper thread...
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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by احمکي ارش-ھجن »

Yes, I've been entirely wondering how in the bloody 'ell I'm supposed to make a velarized /m/...
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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by linguoboy »

Salmoneus wrote:As for /ɟa̠ːɾˠhəɟ/ and /dʲɔ̝̈x/ and /ɡɨ̞ɾˠtʲ/... you're just mocking me now. I can do /g/, no problem, but beyond that... (and why isn't that velarised, anyway?)
Why isn't what velarised?

I think velarisation is easier to understand if you think of it chiefly as a on- or off-glide on the adjoining vowel rather than something you're doing to the vowel. If you can pronounce a medial Spanish /g/, you're one small step from a velar approximant. Alternatively, of course, you can just unround your /w/.
Salmoneus wrote:Do people actually do all this stuff?
Native speakers do. L2 speakers, on the other hand, basically just press their English phonemes into service and call it a day. It's why I can't stand to listen to them.
Salmoneus wrote:Failing that, I'll repeat my request of ten years ago (because I forgot the answer): anyone recommend a book to learn Irish with?
My answer is the same it was then: Ó Siadhail's Learning Irish. Still the best self-instruction textbook I know (though I haven't exactly kept up with newer entrants into the market.)

ETA: Perhaps these reviews will be of some help: http://irishlearner.awyr.com/phpBB3/vie ... 0ed886615c.

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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by finlay »

Why isn't g velarized, you say? How can you put a secondary articulation on a sound which has that as its primary articulation?

(g is already completely velar - it can't be velarized)

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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by Salmoneus »

linguoboy wrote:
Salmoneus wrote:As for /ɟa̠ːɾˠhəɟ/ and /dʲɔ̝̈x/ and /ɡɨ̞ɾˠtʲ/... you're just mocking me now. I can do /g/, no problem, but beyond that... (and why isn't that velarised, anyway?)
Why isn't what velarised?
The /g/. But I gather that in velars the system breaks down and it's 'just' velar vs palatal (which is... oh dear god how is anyone meant to hear the difference between them?)
I think velarisation is easier to understand if you think of it chiefly as a on- or off-glide on the adjoining vowel rather than something you're doing to the vowel. If you can pronounce a medial Spanish /g/, you're one small step from a velar approximant. Alternatively, of course, you can just unround your /w/.
Oh, right! that's still unfeasible, but at least seems possible. So there's no actual co-articulation, just diphthongs?
So how do you do /ɾˠtʲ/ and the like at the end of a word? Do you need an epenthetic vowel to diphthongise?

[If I unround my /w/ I seem to end up with nothing, but never mind, I know there's 'meant' to be some 'velarisation' there].
Salmoneus wrote:Do people actually do all this stuff?
Native speakers do. L2 speakers, on the other hand, basically just press their English phonemes into service and call it a day. It's why I can't stand to listen to them.
Aren't they the only ones who actually still speak it, though? My understanding was that L2 Irish was thriving and growing and has books and TV and radio and so forth whereas 'traditional' Irish is in steep decline even in the gaelteacht?

Incidentally, do you mean that most speakers just ignore the broad/slender thing altogether, or are there particular English phones that are used to try to preserve the distinction (eg [tS] for slender /t/)?[quote
Salmoneus wrote:Failing that, I'll repeat my request of ten years ago (because I forgot the answer): anyone recommend a book to learn Irish with?
My answer is the same it was then: Ó Siadhail's Learning Irish. Still the best self-instruction textbook I know (though I haven't exactly kept up with newer entrants into the market.)

ETA: Perhaps these reviews will be of some help: http://irishlearner.awyr.com/phpBB3/vie ... 0ed886615c.[/quote]

Thanks.
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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by linguoboy »

Salmoneus wrote:The /g/. But I gather that in velars the system breaks down and it's 'just' velar vs palatal
It doesn't "break down". When it comes to phonemic representations, the usual practice is to indicate only palatalisation and not velarisation. There's always a phonetic dimensions to this contrast, it just isn't necessarily a secondary articulation.
Salmoneus wrote:Oh, right! that's still unfeasible, but at least seems possible. So there's no actual co-articulation, just diphthongs?
No, there's coarticulation, but it coincides with on- and offglides (and other modifications to the vowel) and these are often more perceptionally salient than the actual coarticulation. Think of English, for instance, where "voicelessness" is realised as partial devoicing of the following vowel (a.k.a. aspiration) or shortening/centralisation of the proceeding one.
Salmoneus wrote:So how do you do /ɾˠtʲ/ and the like at the end of a word? Do you need an epenthetic vowel to diphthongise?
No, generally you'll hear the effect on the following segment. So, for instance, in the proper name Gaelscoil an Ghoirt Álainn, there'll be a glide between the /tʹ/ and the /aː/.
Salmoneus wrote:[If I unround my /w/ I seem to end up with nothing, but never mind, I know there's 'meant' to be some 'velarisation' there].
It's easier to hear if you have a vowel after it. Try the pair and buí. You should hear a distinctive g-like sound before the /iː/ in the second word.
Salmoneus wrote:
Salmoneus wrote:Do people actually do all this stuff?
Native speakers do. L2 speakers, on the other hand, basically just press their English phonemes into service and call it a day. It's why I can't stand to listen to them.
Aren't they the only ones who actually still speak it, though? My understanding was that L2 Irish was thriving and growing and has books and TV and radio and so forth whereas 'traditional' Irish is in steep decline even in the gaelteacht?
It's true that Gaeltacht Irish is in decline, but even so these speakers are the ones who uses it daily. I question how many L2 speakers really use the language conversationally as opposed to, say, recording bad covers of translated pop songs in it or whatever. The ones I know who really use the language regularly tend to have native-like accents from speaking to Gaeltacht speakers.
Salmoneus wrote:Incidentally, do you mean that most speakers just ignore the broad/slender thing altogether, or are there particular English phones that are used to try to preserve the distinction (eg [tS] for slender /t/)?
A mix. They'll ignore the distinction where there aren't English phones they can use (e.g. /b/ vs /bʹ/) and then exaggerate it elsewhere, as in your example. (For /t/ vs /tʹ/, you're better off using dental vs alveolar if you can manage it. Many Irish English speakers actually have that contrast, since they use [t̪ʰ] for /θ/.)

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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by KathTheDragon »

Not 100% sure if this is the right thread, but...

Are there English verbs which don't have inflected pasts? Just now, I tried to put 'double-take' into the past tense, but the only way I could get it to sound right was by putting it periphrastically, i.e. 'did a double-take' (note that 'he double-takes' is perfectly fine to me), so I started wondering if there were other verbs like that.

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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by linguoboy »

KathAveara wrote:Are there English verbs which don't have inflected pasts?
You mean like all modal verbs?

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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by Salmoneus »

KathAveara wrote:Not 100% sure if this is the right thread, but...

Are there English verbs which don't have inflected pasts? Just now, I tried to put 'double-take' into the past tense, but the only way I could get it to sound right was by putting it periphrastically, i.e. 'did a double-take' (note that 'he double-takes' is perfectly fine to me), so I started wondering if there were other verbs like that.
What's the present tense? "He is double-taking"? "He double-takes"? I don't think I've heard either. I think your underlying problem might be that what you're trying to put in the past tense is a noun!
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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by KathTheDragon »

linguoboy wrote:
KathAveara wrote:Are there English verbs which don't have inflected pasts?
You mean like all modal verbs?
Ok, apart from modal verbs. (though they don't inflect whatsoever, I think)
Salmoneus wrote:What's the present tense? "He is double-taking"? "He double-takes"? I don't think I've heard either. I think your underlying problem might be that what you're trying to put in the past tense is a noun!
KathAveara wrote:'he double-takes'
It's a normal derived verb for me, but if I try and put it in the past tense, I have to resort to the construction with the noun.

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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by Rui »

KathAveara wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
KathAveara wrote:Are there English verbs which don't have inflected pasts?
You mean like all modal verbs?
Ok, apart from modal verbs. (though they don't inflect whatsoever, I think)
1-syllable words ending with -V[+lax]t:

cut, hit, pat, let, put, set, bet, pit(?), rat(?), fit(?), knit, others...

(?) being ones I'm not entirely convinced actually belong to this group, because e.g. pitted doesn't sound necessarily wrong to my ears.

(Exceptions I can think of IMD: net, bat, butt, jet, vet, and probably others, and obviously any strong verbs like get, sit, etc.)

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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by Salmoneus »

Rui wrote:
KathAveara wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
KathAveara wrote:Are there English verbs which don't have inflected pasts?
You mean like all modal verbs?
Ok, apart from modal verbs. (though they don't inflect whatsoever, I think)
1-syllable words ending with -V[+lax]t:

cut, hit, pat, let, put, set, bet, pit(?), rat(?), fit(?), knit, others...

(?) being ones I'm not entirely convinced actually belong to this group, because e.g. pitted doesn't sound necessarily wrong to my ears.

(Exceptions I can think of IMD: net, bat, butt, jet, vet, and probably others, and obviously any strong verbs like get, sit, etc.)
'Pat' is wrong. Also 'pit' and 'rat'; 'fit' and 'knit' can go either way.

Kath: well, there's no mystery to it then. You've just done away with the rule saying 'this cannot be a present-tense verb', but you haven't (yet) done away with the rule saying it can't be a past-tense verb, nor invented a way to inflect it (there's a conflict between the rule that 'take' inflects through ablaut and the rule that new vocabulary items inflect through suffixation). I'm not sure why - to me "he double-took" is exactly as right/wrong as "he double-takes", if not righter - but it's the sort of thing people do. I can imagine, for instance, people (I might be one of them) who would be happy saying "stop catfighting!" but would be unsure about saying "the two women catfought" ("had a catfight" would seem more natural). The present is where most new verbs show up, and the past is extrapolated from that.
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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by Zaarin »

So I'm a bit confused about Semitic transliteration because sources seem to be conflicting. Is <q> /q/ or /kʼ/ (or, for Arabic, /kˁ/)? If it is /kʼ/, I don't see why it's not written <ḳ> analogous to the other emphatics...
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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by Astraios »

What's "Semitic" transliteration? Each Semitic language has its own systems. And of course it's /q/, what else, but whether it's [q] or not depends on the language and dialect. If you mean Proto-Semitic, then it's */kʼ/, which became /q/ in non-Ethiopian.

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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by Zaarin »

Astraios wrote:What's "Semitic" transliteration? Each Semitic language has its own systems. And of course it's /q/, what else, but whether it's [q] or not depends on the language and dialect. If you mean Proto-Semitic, then it's */kʼ/, which became /q/ in non-Ethiopian.
Ah, that makes much more since. The book I was reading was an overview of the Semitic languages as a whole, so if /q/ is historically */kʼ/ then that would explain why it treated /q/ as an emphatic.
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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by Pogostick Man »

Zaarin wrote:So I'm a bit confused about Semitic transliteration because sources seem to be conflicting. Is <q> /q/ or /kʼ/ (or, for Arabic, /kˁ/)? If it is /kʼ/, I don't see why it's not written <ḳ> analogous to the other emphatics...
At least some older sources seem to use <ḳ> (I have a reprinted book of star names from the late 1800s/early 1900s that has <ḳ> for what I presume is modern <q>). Using <q> over <ḳ> has the advantage of one less diacriticized character, although I wonder if the really early IPA conventions (after they expanded it to include Arabic phonemes way back in the day) have anything to do with it or if it was the other way around.
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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by Pressed Bunson »

Crossposted from the fluency thread:
Pressed Bunson wrote:¡Necesito ayuda de hablantes de español! (Específicamente, los que conocen a su usaje estadounidense.)
I need help from Spanish speakers! (Specifically, those who are familiar with its usage in the USA.)

Una amiga de mi madre me pidió traducir el acto de la Organización De Padres y Maestros de su escuela. En el acto, hay un informe de negocios. El informe lista dos cantidades de dolares y centavos: 1884 dolares y 90 centavos y 2317 dolares y 28 centavos.
A friend of my mom's asked me to translate the minutes of the Parent Teacher Organization for her school. In the minutes, there's a financial report. The report lists two amounts of dollars and cents: 1884 dollars and 90 cents y 2317 dollars and 28 cents.

Sé que en los países hispanohablantes, la norma es (por ejemplo) $2317,28. Mi pregunta es esta: ¿es el mismo en el usaje estadounidense?
I know that in the Spanish-speaking countries, the standard is (for example) $2317,28. My question is this: is the standard the same in the USA?


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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by Pressed Bunson »

Can't read what's behind those links (says I need to log in), but it seems like they mainly deal with usage of the period vs. comma in English. Would Spanish publications in the USA do the same thing?

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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by linguoboy »

Pressed Bunson wrote:
Can't read what's behind those links (says I need to log in), but it seems like they mainly deal with usage of the period vs. comma in English. Would Spanish publications in the USA do the same thing?
Sorry, I didn't realise my access was domain-specific. I don't know if there's a Spanish-language version of the Chicago manual of style. North American Spanish has its own academy so I would imagine it has its own distinct norms.

In American English-language writing, the standard format for monetary amounts is: $2,317.28

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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by KathTheDragon »

It's the same in British English writing: £2,317.28

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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by Salmoneus »

But he was asking about Spanish...
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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by sirdanilot »

What do you find hard about velarizing things? I couldn't imagine what's so hard about it.

In any case, isn't it the most important thing that you palatalize all the consonants that should be palatalized? In learning a foreign language, you mainly want your phonemic distinctions right, even if your pronounciation is off. Later, you can focus on improving your pronounciation.

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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by Salmoneus »

Velarization isn't phonemic in my L1 (or any language where I have ever had access to a community of speakers in RL); it should hardly be surprising therefore that I have a problem knowing how to do it, or knowing whether I've done it or not.
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Re: Questions not about German Thread

Post by sirdanilot »

I think the best way to do it: pretend you are talking with a russian accent. If you do that, you tend to velarize everything.

Then try to not velarize the palatalized things.

Et voila, you speak irish with the proper broad and slender consonants (velarized and palatalized).

I also do not speak a language with contrastive velarization or palatalization (though portuguese does have phonetic palatalization all over the place).

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