LINGUIST List 2.227

Wednesday, 15 May 1991

Disc: Tongue Twisters

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. David Stampe, Tongue Twisters
2. bert peeters, French tongue twisters
3. Sheldon Harrison, Gilbertese tongue twisters
4. Herb Stahlke, RE: Yoruba Tongue Twisters
5. , German tongue-twisters
6. , Re: Portuguese Tongue Twisters
7. , French Tongue Twisters

The state of the art paper is still Larry Schourup's "Unique New York
Unique New York Unique New York", CLS 9.587-596 (1973, ed. C. Corum et
al.), complete with typological sampler (even the Hari Krishna mantra!),
bibliography, and a prosodic/phonological theory of tongue twisters
almost general enough to predict the torque implicit in *any* utterance.

David Stampe <stampeuhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>, <stampeuhccux.bitnet>
Dept. of Linguistics, Univ. of Hawaii/Manoa, Honolulu HI 96822

Here is a variant of Dominique Estival's first tongue-twister:

Un chasseur sachant chasser sans son chien de chasse est un bon chasseur
(a hunter who knows how to hunt without his hunting dog is a good hunter)

In Dominique's second tongue twister, one word was inadvertently left out.
It should read as follows:

Si six scies scient six cypres, six cent six scies scient six cent six cypres
(If 6 saws saw 6 cypress treesd, 606 saws saw 606 cypress trees)

Bert Peeters <peeterstasman.cc.utas.edu.au>

A Gilbertese tongue twister first reported by an oceanographer names Gordon
Groves a number of years ago:

 Iai aia aia aiaia iaaia.
 'Their enemies have their firewood under them.'

morpheme-by-morpheme gloss can be supplied on request.
 shelly harrison
 university of western australia

There's a Yoruba tongue-twister that I know only the first clause of. In ASCII
notation I'm using the following symbols:

 O open o
 kp coarticulated labio-velar stop with light velar suction
 V` low-tone vowel
 V mid-tone vowel
 V' high-tone vowel

O`kpO`lO'O`kpO` O`kpO`lO' ko` l O`kpO`lO'O`kpO` OkpOlO
 Many toads neg have many brains
"Many toads do not have many brains."

Maybe someone can finish this one for me.

 Herb Stahlke

An expansion of the previously posted German tongue twister is:
Fischers Fritze fischte frische Fische in der Fruehe.
Here are some others:
Ein Student mit Stulpenstiefeln stolperte ueber einen spitzen Stein.
A student with topboots stumbled over a pointed stone.

In Ulm, um Ulm und um Ulm herum.
In Ulm (a city), around Ulm, and all around Ulm. (loose translation)

My favorite:
Ob er ueber Oberammergau oder aber ueber Unterammergau oder aber
Whether he via Oberamm. or however via Unteramm. or however

ueber Oberhalb kommt, ist ungewiB.
via Oberh. is coming, (now you can breathe) is not known. 

-Kurt Godden

>From Portuguese:
O tempo perguntou ao tempo quanto tempo o tempo tem; e o tempo
respondeu ao tempo que o tempo tem tanto tempo quanto tempo o tempo tem.

Time asked Time how much time Time has; and Time replied to Time
that Time has as much time as Time has time.

Works best with final voiceless vowels in [te'mpu].

Milton Azevedo
UC Berkeley

PS - By the way, is there anyone out there working with
Portuguese or Catalan?

My wife (almost) remembers this one from her days studying French:

Cinq capucins portaient sur la Seine le sang du Saint-P`ere.
'Five monks carried on the Seine the blood of the Pope.'

When I say "almost", I mean that she's not certain that the ending was
not, rather, le sang de son p`ere, 'the blood of his father'. But
the first choice above seems more coherent. 

Paul Chapin

[End Linguist List, Vol. 2, No. 227]