Sounds
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The 23 consonants of Kiowa:
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Bilabial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal Plosive and
affricateb d ɡ p t ts k ʔ pʰ tʰ kʰ pʼ tʼ tsʼ kʼ Fricative s h z Nasal m n Approximant (w) l j
Kiowa distinguishes six vowel qualities, with three distinctive levels of height and a front-back contrast. All six vowels may be long or short, oral or nasal. Four of the vowels occurs as diphthongs with a high front off-glide of the form vowel + /j/.
The 24 Kiowa vowels:
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Contrasts among the consonants are easily demonstrated with an abundance of minimal and near-minimal pairs. There are no contrasts between the presence of initial glottal stops and its absence.
| IPA | Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| /pʼ/ | 'female's sister' | |
| /pʰ/ | 'fire; hill; heavy' | |
| /p/ | 'food eating' | |
| /b/ | 'foggy' | |
| /tʼ/ | 'deer' | |
| /tʰ/ | 'dry' | |
| /t/ | 'eye' |
The ejective and aspirated stops are articulated forcefully. The unaspirated voiceless stops are tense, while the voiced stops are lax.
The voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ is pronounced before /y/
| Orthography | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| sét | 'bear' | |
| syân | 'be small' | |
| sân | 'child' |
The lateral /l/ is realized as in syllable-initial position, as lightly affricated in syllable-final position and slightly devoiced in utterance-final position. It occurs seldomly in word-initial position.
| célê | 'set' | |
| gúldɔ | 'be red, painted' | |
| sál | 'be hot' |
The dental resonants /l/ and /n/ are palatalized before /i/.
| tʰàlí | 'boy' | |
| bõnî | 'see' |
All consonants may begin a syllable but /l/ may not occur word-initially. The only consonants which may terminate a syllable are /p,t,m,n,l,y/.
Certain sequences of consonant and vowel do not occur: dental and alveolar obstruents preceding /i/ (tʼi, tʰi, ti, di, kʼi, ki, si, zi). Velars and /y/ preceding /e/ (kʼe, kʰe, ke, ge, ye).
The glide /y/ automatically occurs between all velars and /a/.
Nasalization of voiced stops operates automatically only within the domain of the pronominal prefixes: voiced stops become the corresponding nasals either preceding or following a nasal. The velar nasal that is derived from /g/ is deleted; there is no /ŋ/ in Kiowa.
Underlying /ia/ surfaces in alternating forms as /ya/ following velars, as /a/ following labials and as /i:/ if accompanied by falling tone.
Obstruents are devoiced in two environments: in syllable-final position and following a voiceless obsturent. Voiced stops are devoiced in syllable-final position without exception. In effect, the rule applies only to /b/ and /d/ since velars are prohibited in final position.
The palatal glide /y/ spreads across the laryngeals /h/ and /ʔ/, yielding a glide onset, a brief moment of coarticulation and a glide release. The laryngeals /h/ and /ʔ/ are variably deleted between sonorants. This also applies across a word boundary.
Read more about this topic: Kiowa Language
Famous quotes containing the word sounds:
“Dylan used to sound like a lung cancer victim singing Woody Guthrie. Now he sounds like a Rolling Stone singing Immanuel Kant.”
—Also quoted in Robert Shelton, No Direction Home, ch. 2, “Prophet Without Honor” (1986)
“It sounds like a soul in hell.”
—Ben Maddow (1909–1992)
“These were the sounds that issued from the wigwams of this country before Columbus was born; they have not yet died away; and, with remarkably few exceptions, the language of their forefathers is still copious enough for them. I felt that I stood, or rather lay, as near to the primitive man of America, that night, as any of its discoverers ever did.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)