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:
“O to dream, O to awake and wander
There, and with delight to take and render,
Through the trance of silence,
Quiet breath;
Lo! for there, among the flowers and grasses,
Only the mightier movement sounds and passes;
Only winds and rivers,
Life and death.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
“While we were thus engaged in the twilight, we heard faintly, from far down the stream, what sounded like two strokes of a woodchopper’s axe, echoing dully through the grim solitude.... When we told Joe of this, he exclaimed, “By George, I’ll bet that was a moose! They make a noise like that.” These sounds affected us strangely, and by their very resemblance to a familiar one, where they probably had so different an origin, enhanced the impression of solitude and wildness.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“half-way up the hill, I see the Past
Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,—
A city in the twilight dim and vast,
With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,—
And hear above me on the autumnal blast
The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)