Assorted Language Questions

[Takhisis]

An important question: Why is the letter K such a wild card across so many languages? See, I haven't read its history but I've observed that it has many variations, a lot more than people think. In English for example, it can be either like the k in "king" or silent like the h in Spanish before N. In gernan, it's always [k]. In Norwegian, it can make both a [k] sound or a voiceless palatal fricative sound. In Swedish soft K is voiceless alveolar fricative. In Danish, K can be either g or k. Same with Czech and Slovak. In Faroese, k can be both k or ch. in Icelandic, K is either a [cʰ] sound, a k sound with aspiration, a normal [k] sound and an [x] sound. In Tagalog, K can make either [k] or [x] sound. In Turkish, K can make both [k] or [c] where it's always [c] in Azeri. In Xhosa, K is [k'] and finally in Zulu, it's either a[k] or [ɠ] sound. Finally, In Indonesian, it is like a glottal stop or like [k] and in Chinese, it's [k] with aspiration. Even in Hawaiian, it can sometimes make a [t] sound. Why is K such a wildcard letter cross linguistically? Is there a point of time when it got palatalized in those languages? Can someone please answer me?

All letters are wildcards linguistically. Spelling and speech tend to go together but not always. Various reasons end up influencing the change in one or the other.

 

[QarQing]

All letters are wildcards linguistically. Spelling and speech tend to go together but not always. Various reasons end up influencing the change in one or the other.

Not letters like M or F which have almost no variability in pronounciation cross linguistically. A wildcard letter is a letter whose pronounciation variability is significant. And in known languages like Scandinavian, Bantu, there are notable pronounciation diferences of letter K.

 

[Takhisis]

Not letters like M or F which have almost no variability in pronounciation cross linguistically.

How many languages *do* you speak?

A wildcard letter is a letter whose pronounciation variability is significant.

Completely unlike M and F?

 

[QarQing]

How many languages *do* you speak?

I don't speak but I read about them

 

[Takhisis]

So zero.

 

[QarQing]

So zero.

Why are you being so mean?

 

[Takhisis]

You're repeating the Josu situation. Not only that, but you actually drop personal messages with urgent summons in them. ‘The moderator needs you to answer the question’? Man, it's you who's asking questions and demanding answers and when the person you're demanding an answer from doesn't give you the answer that you seem to want to hear (and knows more about the subject than you do) you just drop random dictionary entries on him. That doesn't fly. At least show an open mind and a bit of respect.

 

[QarQing]

you just drop random dictionary entries on him. That doesn't fly. At least show an open mind and a bit of respect.

Not true!

 

[Takhisis]

/unsubscribes from thread

 

[QarQing]

/unsubscribes from thread

Sorry

 

[NovaKart]

Kurdish has ergative tense. It throws me. It’s like, food-my ate

 

[sophie]

Come on, show a bit more respect. This is supposed to be a linguistics assortion forum

You’re the one who’s being disrespectful of others’ time and expertise, dude

 

[QarQing]

You’re the one who’s being disrespectful of others’ time and expertise, dude

Bruh! Do I post here regularly? No I don't! I'm a new kid and I don't post regularly. How is a person who is new and doesn't post often supposed to be following rules well?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Hello. Post thoughtfully. If you spend a bit of time reading threads, you can learn about the regulars and the posting culture we have. The threads about wars and other more toxic subjects are excepting to the normally conversational nature of Off Topic. In Off topic you have access to a huge and diverse knowledge base about all kinds of subjects from folks from all around the world. Takhisis is multi lingual with deep knowledge about many languages and how they work, as well as, translating them. That is why I asked him into the thread. You did not come across well in your posts to him.

 

[QarQing]

Hello. Post thoughtfully. If you spend a bit of time reading threads, you can learn about the regulars and the posting culture we have. The threads about wars and other more toxic subjects are excepting to the normally conversational nature of Off Topic. In Off topic you have access to a huge and diverse knowledge base about all kinds of subjects from folks from all around the world. Takhisis is multi lingual with deep knowledge about many languages and how they work, as well as, translating them. That is why I asked him into the thread. You did not come across well in your posts to him.

Listen, I'm really sorry! Reason is, I'm new and I don't post regularly

 

[Harv]

All letters are wildcards linguistically. Spelling and speech tend to go together but not always. Various reasons end up influencing the change in one or the other.

Pretty much this, in my uninformed opinion. We should expect this if we are using a script that was designed for a different language. In English, we inherited a Latin script and have multiple conflicting spelling conventions. The Romans had a script adapted from Etruscans and Greeks. The Greeks adapted a script from the Phoenicians, and Indo-European language adapting a script from a Semitic language. It should be no surprise that some of the letters are wildcards. I thought this was why the Greek alphabet includes some vowels, because the consonant sounds represented by some of the adapted letters did not exist in Greek.

Some of the Indo-European languages listed by QQ either did not have a written script, or used a different script and later adapted a variation of the Latin script. It would be no surprise that some of these letters adapted are wildcards. Some of the languages listed are not Indo-European and either had a different written script or no script at all. So if we are adapting a Latin script to a non-Indo-European language, it will be no surprise that a lot of the letters adapted will be wildcards.

The International Phonetic Alphabet would be away around the problem described. The last time I looked it up, I found it very confusing, because I do not often practice reading something scripted in IPA. Also amusing is IPA appears self-contradicting to me and should be IFA.

 

[Arwon]

Not letters like M or F which have almost no variability in pronounciation cross linguistically. A wildcard letter is a letter whose pronounciation variability is significant. And in known languages like Scandinavian, Bantu, there are notable pronounciation diferences of letter K.

Even in English, F can represent either a voiced or voiceless fricative, and in some other languages it can be a bilabial fricative, a little like an English B.

 

[Birdjaguar]

"Fricative" is a new word for me and what it means doesn't matter. I can still use it: "What the fricative are you doing? "Fricatives were the reason Japan lost WW2."

 

[Harv]

"Fricative" is a new word for me

Here - I chose this chart for you! I chose this one because it includes examples.
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.u.arizona.edu/~ohalad/Phonetics/docs/Cvchart.pdf

https://www.u.arizona.edu/~ohalad/Phonetics/docs/Cvchart.pdf

So voiceless fricative is "F" as in Fine. The voiced fricative is "V" as in Vine. The fine wine grows on a vine.

This is all fairly new to me and the chart I linked is a lot less confusing than what is on Wikipedia. Some of this makes me think of speech therapy class. Some of this makes me think of Spanish pronunciation class.

IPA consonant chart with audio - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Do you pronounce 'neo' like 'knee-oh' or 'neigh-oh'?