Sounds
No complete phonological study of Korandje, systematically justified by minimal pairs, has yet been made. According to Souag (2010), the vowel system consists of lax ə, ŭ, ə̣̣ and tense a, i, u, ạ, ụ, while the consonant system is as follows:
| Labial | Coronal | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosives | b bʷ | t tˤ d dˤ | k kʷ ɡ ɡʷ | q qʷ | (ʔ) | ||
| Affricates | ts dz | ||||||
| Approximants | w | l lˤ | j | ||||
| Fricatives | f fʷ | s sˤ z zˤ | (ʃ ʒ) | x xʷ ɣ ɣʷ | ħ ʕ | h | |
| Nasals | m mʷ | n | |||||
| Trill | r rˤ |
Items in brackets are not normally used by older speakers. A bilabial click is attested in one baby-talk word.
An earlier proposal by Nicolaï (1981), based on a very limited corpus of recordings provided by Champault, suggested a smaller phoneme inventory:
| Labial | Coronal | Palatal | Velar | Labiovelar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosives | b | t d | k ɡ | kʷ ɡʷ | ||
| Affricates | ts dz | |||||
| Approximants | l | j | w | |||
| Fricatives | f | s z | ʃ ʒ | ɣ | h | |
| Nasals | m | n | ||||
| Trill | r |
alongside pharyngealized consonants ṭ ḍ ṣ ẓ ṇ ḥ as well as x q, found mainly in loanwords, and a six-vowel system: a, i, u, e, o, and ə (schwa).
Read more about this topic: Korandje Language
Famous quotes containing the word sounds:
““Try speaking. Say ‘Hello!’”
“Hello. Hello.”
“What do you hear?”
“I hear an empty room—
You know it sounds that way. And yes, I hear
I think I hear a clock and windows rattling....””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“To me, the sea is like a person—like a child that I’ve known a long time. It sounds crazy, I know, but when I swim in the sea I talk to it. I never feel alone when I’m out there.”
—Gertrude Ederle (b. 1906)
“If there is a man white as marble
Sits in a wood, in the greenest part,
Brooding sounds of the images of death,
So there is a man in black space
Sits in nothing that we know,
Brooding sounds of river noises....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)