Some of my newly acquired acquaintances are really quite quaint. They all have a unique way of pronouncing plural words in English. They use ’s’ instead of ‘z’ at the end.
For example, “Your ice are very red today” .. My what?
“Give me the kiss please” or “I hope you didn’t forget to bring the kiss”
Thankfully, this strangeness is only reserved for plurals. The “please” is still pronounced with “z” at the end.
Then there are are some sounds that they can pronounce that I simply can’t. Such as the ‘zh’ in Kozhikode. I pronounce it like the ‘Ɣ’ in Marathi “kEƔa” (banana) or “bAƔA” (child). But apparently it’s something between my ‘Ɣ’ and ‘d’ and ‘l’. I have tried to make those sounds but I really don’t know where to start since I can’t hear any difference between what I say and what they say. (Even french pronunciation was much easier!)
My misery doesn’t end there, yet. Their intonation, accents are all different. “Origin” is pronounced like “Arjun”. “Does the bag come with wheels” sounds like “Does the bag come widheels”. To make matters more interesting, that last sentence was heard on an STD call, and the speaker was in a running auto-rickshaw.
But after reading about Tonal Languages, I think I am much better off than say a newly married Cantonese man. From wikipedia,
In the most familiar tonal language, Chinese, tones are distinguished by their shape (contour), most syllables carry their own tone, words tend to be short, and many words are differentiated solely by tone. (This is more true in Cantonese than Mandarin.) Tone also plays almost no grammatical role. In many African tone languages, such as most Bantu languages, however, tones are distinguished by their relative level, words are longer, there are fewer minimal tone pairs, and a single tone may be carried by the entire word, rather than a different tone on each syllable. Often grammatical information, such as past versus present, “I” versus “you”, or positive versus negative, is conveyed solely by tone.
Imagine speaking in a language in which the meaning of the word changes, sometimes diametrically, based on what “pitch” you say it in! I think there’s one big disadvantage. You wouldn’t be able to lie easily.
“That dinner you cooked was simply terrific”.
“oh really? huh! Then why did I hear an augmented C minor chord there?”
July 1, 2008 at 3:24 pm
The Zh effect.The trick is to take your tongue to the top but not touch the top but leave 2mm between the tongue and the upper (?) part of your mouth.Zh is a direct result of the air which gets trapped between this narrow confine and gets expelled to the universe utilizing all crazy rules of aerodynamics.
Some great thinkers of the universe are born with that ability.
August 5, 2008 at 7:44 pm
‘zha’ is not the only unpronouncable syllable. There ‘re actually a bunch of them. These are some class of phonemes in between the retrroflexes and the approximants. For ex, there’s one more..between ya and la. haLegannaDa used to have two..one closer to La and the other closer to ra.
You should try pronouncing – vyAzhakizhamai vAzhai pazhanthil vazhakku vazhakku vizhunthAn.
These things apart, All Dravidian languages are actually phonetically pretty poor. For instance, none of the native words ever contain mahAprANas (aspirated consonants). In tamizh, there’s a lot of conflicts between voiced and unvoiced consonants as well (for all purposes, (in the script that is).. mahAkavi = magAgavi ). Kannada and Telugu native words seldom contain mahAprAnAs too, despite the sanskritic influence being very high.
The sanskrit / hindi Sha (the second Sha) is also a retroflex. Not the same as the first Sha..although people hardly make the distinction while talking (bhAshe ! == bhAShe).
August 5, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Learning a tonal language must be the same as Indian (classical)music too. Most have no absolute pitch. So technically I suppose you can’t equate it to the western notation/nomenclature.
Ear Training (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ear_Training) / parsing things into musical notes is something that a lot of people like me struggle to do. Speaking / learning a tonal language seems a really scary proposition.
September 7, 2008 at 2:48 pm
“The sanskrit / hindi Sha (the second Sha) is also a retroflex. Not the same as the first Sha..although people hardly make the distinction while talking (bhAshe ! == bhAShe).”
No kidding.. my own real name is spelled with the second SHA in it, but I have never quite known the difference between the two pronuncations.
“vyAzhakizhamai vAzhai pazhanthil vazhakku vazhakku vizhunthAn.”
That was fun to say. What does it mean?
“In tamizh, there’s a lot of conflicts between voiced and unvoiced consonants as well (for all purposes, (in the script that is).. mahAkavi = magAgavi ).”
Now I understand why you used to call me garSHad
“Learning a tonal language must be the same as Indian (classical)music too. Most have no absolute pitch. So technically I suppose you can’t equate it to the western notation/nomenclature”
Good catch! I just don’t know enough Indian classical music to throw some catch-phrases around
“Ear Training (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ear_Training) / parsing things into musical notes is something that a lot of people like me struggle to do.”
Its not that difficult.. you need to associate something with each pitch. Singers can learn it fastest since they can associate their own voice with it. But anybody who learns to play some musical instrument should be able to train their ears.
September 7, 2008 at 2:49 pm
oneiro: “Some great thinkers of the universe are born with that ability.”
Ha ha.. looks like I am an exception to the rule
December 22, 2008 at 7:09 pm
No, you are not the exception, you do follow the rule.