LINGUIST List 6.1038

Wed Aug 2 1995

FYI: New sound in Chapacuran, Web pages on animals/Old Engl

Editor for this issue: Ann Dizdar <dizdartam2000.tamu.edu>

Directory

1. Dan Everett, New sound in Chapacuran documented
2. Cathy Ball, Web pages: Sounds of the World's Animals, Old English

Last year I posted a note on the Linguist List about a new sound in
the Chapacuran language, Wari', a voiceless alveolar stop followed by
a voiceless bilabial trill. This year Peter Ladefoged of UCLA joined
me in collecting data on this sound (and various other interesting
aspects of Amazonian phonetics). The sound was recorded from 6 Wari'
men and 6 Wari' women. Production of the sound was also videotaped and
about three palatograms were made. Ladefoged concurs that, in his
experience at least, this sound is sui generis and has been documented
in in no other language. It is unlike, for example, the "Uralic sound"
that Bernard Comrie brought to my attention on this list last year.

Moreover, we were able to document the same sound in the related
language, Oro Win (a new language I first pointed out on this list
last year). The sound is not an allophone in Oro Win (as it is for
some Wari' speakers) and we have minimal pairs showing contrast with
[t]. An article on phonetic rarities in Chapacuran is currently
underway (contact Ladefoged at UCLA for further details).

Finally, it might be of interest to know that Brazilian-sponsored
researchers discovered that Oro Win was a previously undocumented
language and were about to report this when they read that this had in
fact already been noted here on Linguist (and in the SSILA
newsletter). I am now involved in a joint research project with these
Brazilian researchers. I note this here only to confirm again that Oro
Win was indeed first noticed as a separate language last year on this
list.

Dan Everett

I've developed some Web pages that might be useful for those teaching
Intro to Linguistics or Old English in the Fall: Sounds of the World's
Animals, and Old English Pages.

Sounds of the World's Animals (inspired by Peter Ladefoged's Sounds of
the World's Languages) has sounds that animals make in various
languages, organized by animal and by language. There's a picture for
each animal and the sound that the animal actually makes, for
comparison with the language data. Could be useful for the usual Intro
segment on onomatopoeia, or as a lead-in to Phonology ... when viewed
by groups, guaranteed to provoke lively discussion!
http://www.georgetown.edu/cball/animals/animals.html

The Old English Pages are a collection of links to resources for the
study of Old English, including e-text, manuscript images, fonts,
instructional software, and whatever else I could find on the net.
http://www.georgetown.edu/cball/oe/old_english.html

I hope someone finds these useful.

 -- Cathy Ball (cballguvax.georgetown.edu)