Kissing, clicking, sputtering... these are
just some of the odd sounds that people around the world actually use to speak! Come hear
these unusual phonemes, try them out yourself and find out which one of them is something
you say every day in English. Weird Sounds in World Languages! Not my normal
fare, but I'm feeling something light before we get into more linguistic tales. Let's go! A row of languages all lined up in Africa
have a sound written gb. So when you run across this name of a dance from the Côte d'Ivoire,
you might be tempted to go French on it and call it gbégbé. But notice the tie on top
- it's one single sound. To make it, bring your tongue up to the soft palate and make
a /g/, but also close and release your lips during that /g/ for a combo g-b sound: ɡ͡b,
ɡ͡beɡ͡be! There's a voiceless form, too: k͡p. In the World Atlas of Language Structures,
with its cross-language data on common and uncommon sounds, these are rare enough that
they're only in 8% of the languages sampled. Can you putter your lips like if you're cold?
/ʙʙʙ/ That's a bilabial trill, phonetically speaking. Don't pat yourself on the back for
it though. A number of languages use ʙ̥u and ʙu sounds. But in the far reaches of
Brazil, deep in the Amazon, live the Pirahã, a people whose language has stirred up some
linguistic controversy. One of its unusual features is a bilabial trilled affricate.
To make it, they hold their tongue in position for a t sound against the teeth, then release it with that sputtering lip trill: t̪͡ʙ̥. (I see why this sound is rare!) /t̪͡ʙ̥a/ This next type of sound might be more familiar
to some of you out there: pharyngeals. The pharynx is straight in the back of your mouth,
where the nasal cavity connects to the throat connects to the voice box. If you bring the
base, the root of the tongue way back, the restricted airflow makes the sound ħ. (Am I breathing in your ear? This isn't creepy at all!) Voice that sound, and it's ʕ.
Do you know which major world language has sounds close to both of these and expects
you to tell them apart from nearby glottal h and velar x? It's Arabic! And other Afroasiatic
languages. In all, pharyngeals can be found in only 4% the languages in that world sample. A Spanish island in the Canaries off the coast
of Africa, La Gomera, makes some intriguing noises. Unlike the previous examples, their
oddity isn't a sound, it's actually a whole way of speaking using whistles. It's called
el silbo "the whistle" by locals, who use high or low frequency combined with either
flows or breaks to communicate both vowels and consonants. The West African gb, that lippy trill in Brazil,
pharyngeals in Semitic - so far our rares are clustered in hotzones. But this next rarity
is found all around the planet. Prepare your tongue for "dental fricatives"! You won't
really need much practice though, because English has them: θ, ð. Putting the tongue
up against the teeth and pushing a stream of airflow around it THis way is only done
in somewhat over 7% of that world language sample. Alright, English! You know how French is infamous for its nasal
sounds? Anhanhan! French got them when a nosy sound spread one vowel over. That happens.
But nasal spreading doesn't have to stop there. Spread away! Through vowels, through consonants,
until whole stretches of sounds become downright infected with the nasal, like in the Epena
language of Colombia where /sĩəso/ comes out as [s̃ĩə̃s̃õ]. Lots of odd consonants so far, but I found
some fun vowels along a river in Oaxaca, Mexico, in a town where they speak a Mazatec language.
For every one normal vowel you give 'em, they have three for you: normal æ, which linguists
call "modal voice", but also breathy voice æ̤, and creaky voice æ̰. They even do
this with nasals: æ̃, æ̤̃, æ̰̃! Add to this that they also have tones, all
these consonants you've never tried to tell apart, and even their own whistle speech,
and you've got a mouthful! One last one before we go - time for the oddest
speech sounds out there! Making their home in the southwest of Africa are the Khoisan
languages. This isn't a single family (even though mass comparison struck again). It's
a cluster of families renowned for possessing entire sets of sounds called clicks. This is a kiss, I mean a bilabial click. (Kind
of even looks like a kiss.) To make it, speakers close their tongue against the back of the
mouth and also close both lips but don't purse them. Two closures. Then, using the tongue,
they suck a pocket of air into that enclosed area. Finally, they let go of the lips and
out pops a ʘ! Trapping air between two closures and then
releasing the front closure can be applied to your teeth: ǀ ǀ ǀ, the side of your
mouth: ǁ ǁ, the roof of your mouth: ǃ ǃ ! So much clicking! Click languages accounted
for just 1.8% of that world language sample. Well, see, our world's languages are full
of all kinds of meaningful, strange sounds. Maybe we'll take a linguistic trip to one
of these hotspots and investigate further. Until then, stick around and subscribe for
language!
Does Pirahã have [
t̪͡ʙ̥]? I know Wari and Oro Win both have it (Ladefoged & Everett 1996 "The Status of Phonetic Rarities"), and I know Pirahã has [ʙ] (Everett 1982 "Phonetic Rarities in Pirahã"), but I didn't think Pirahã had [t̪͡ʙ̥].Everett 1982 does discuss what he calls a "voiced, lateralized apical-alveolar/sublaminal-labial double flap with egressive lung air" (Fig 1), though.
I'd also take statistics from WALS with a grain of salt (cf. Schulze 2007, Bright 2007, Davis et al. 2015 §4).
This was fun, but his /!/ was wrong. He did what I've heard some scholars of San languages refer to as "flopping." That is, there was no loud transient burst as the vacuum created by the tongue was released at the (hard) palate; rather, he made a noise by allowing the tongue to drop rapidly against the lower jaw.
Surprised there was no mention of /ɣ/.
As someone with a speech impediment I hate dental fricatives so, so much.
No r-colored vowels?
Manus, PNG and Malekula, Vanuatu have languages with ʙ too.