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:
“It sounds like a soul in hell.”
—Ben Maddow (1909–1992)
“The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence.”
—Paul Simon (b. 1941)
“We may say that feelings have two kinds of intensity. One is the intensity of the feeling itself, by which loud sounds are distinguished from faint ones, luminous colors from dark ones, highly chromatic colors from almost neutral tints, etc. The other is the intensity of consciousness that lays hold of the feeling, which makes the ticking of a watch actually heard infinitely more vivid than a cannon shot remembered to have been heard a few minutes ago.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)