Sounds
The sounds of Laal are transcribed here using International Phonetic Alphabet symbols. The consonants are:
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | Voiceless | p | t | c | k | ʔ |
| Voiced | b | d | ɟ | ɡ | ||
| Prenasalized | (ᵐb) | (ⁿd) | (ᶮɟ) | (ᵑɡ) | ||
| Implosive | ɓ | ɗ | (ʄ) | |||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Fricative | s | h | ||||
| Trill | r | |||||
| Approximant | l | j | w | |||
Implosives and prenasalised stops, as well as h, are found only word-initially. Voiceless stops, as well as s, cannot occur at the end of a syllable. /ŋ/ occurs only intervocalically and word-finally. /s/ appears exclusively in loanwords and certain numbers. The prenasalized stops, as well as the implosive /ʄ/, are extremely rare.
The vowel system for non-initial syllables is: /i/, /ɨ/, /u/, /e/, /ə/, /o/, /a/, and the diphthong /ua/, with no length distinction. For initial syllables, however, it is much more complicated, allowing length distinctions and distinguishing the following additional diphthongs: /ia/, /yo/, /ya/ (though the latter two appear only as morphologically conditioned forms of /e/ and /ia/, and are perhaps better seen as allophonic.) In addition, /y/ may occur very occasionally; Boyeldieu quotes the example of mỳlùg "red (pl.)".
There are three level tones: high (á), middle (a), low (à). Combinations of these may occur on a single vowel, resulting in phonetic rising and falling tones; these are phonemically sequences of level tones. Such cases are transcribed here by repeating the vowel (e.g. àá); long vowels are indicated only by the colon (e.g. a:).
Suffixes may force any of four kinds of ablaut on the vowels of preceding words: raising (takes /ia/, /a/, /ua/ to, ), lowering (takes /e/, /ə/, /o/ to, ), low rounding (takes /i/ and /ɨ/ to ; /e/ and /ia/ to ; /ə/, /a/, and /ua/ to ), and high rounding (takes /i/ and /ɨ/ to ; /e/ and /ia/ to ; /ə/, /a/, and /o/ to ). They are transcribed in the suffix section as ↑, ↓, ↗, ↘ respectively. In some verbs, a/ə is "raised" to rather than, as expected, .
In suffixes, ə and o undergo vowel harmony: they become ɨ and u respectively if the preceding vowel is one of {i, ɨ, u}. Likewise, r undergoes consonant harmony, becoming l after words containing l. Suffixes with neutral tone copy the final tone of the word they are suffixed to.
Read more about this topic: Laal Language
Famous quotes containing the word sounds:
“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)
“She sang a song that sounds like life; I mean it was sad. Délira knew no other types of songs. She didn’t sing loud, and the song had no words. It was sung with closed lips and it stayed down in one’s throat.... Life is what taught them, these Negresses, to sing as if they were choking back sobs. It is a song that always ends with a beginning anew because this song is the picture of misery, and tell me, does misery ever end?”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)
“I that so long
Was Nothing from Eternity,
Did little think such Joys as Ear and Tongue
To celebrate or see:
Such Sounds to hear, such Hands to feel, such Feet,
Such Eyes and Objects, on the Ground to meet.”
—Thomas Traherne (1636–1674)