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Austronesian phonemes. | ||
Tags: Phonetics | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 4038 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 1 of 15 04 February 2014 at 2:04am | IP Logged | ||
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Is there an explanation on why many Austronesian languages have such a small numbers of vowels and
consonants? Maori for example has only 5 vowels and 10 consonants with no clusters in consonants. Hawaiian has 10 vowels but only 8 consonants. Samoan, only 5 vowels and 11 consonants. Same rules concerning consonant clusters. Many have larger inventories such as Tagalog with 19 consonants and 14 vowels. But it seems the ones furthest from Taiwan have less and less, not to mention the grammar gets even simpler in some of the further out islands compared to the specifications that ones closer to Asia have. Though some tend to be quite irregular, but the most named ones such as Tongan and Maori are esperanto like in formation. Edited by Stolan on 04 February 2014 at 2:29am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4874 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 2 of 15 04 February 2014 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's an interesting question!
I'm not sure about your numbers, though... I'd say Samoan actually has 10 vowels - short and long vowels need to be differentiated, the length is relevant for the meaning of words (The same is true for Maori and Hawaiian). There are 10 native consonants (11 if you count 'ua' as 'wa') and 3 consonants only used in European loan words. If you want more information about Samoan's sound system have a look here, message 6: my Samoan log. I compiled all the useful information I could find. One could speculate that there are two factors at play: There has probably not been much outside influence that could have added to the languages' sound inventory. Some diversifying influence can be observed in the 3 added Samoan consonants for European loan words. It could also be a matter of population size, homogeneity (although the Maori, for example, seem to have been rather diverse tribes) and the fact that they left their original home countr(ies) (colonies tend to be more conservative phonetically). I'm not aware that Polynesian languages have dialects, although it could certainly be the case. Vowels are important phonemes in Polynesian languages, probably more so than in many others. Thus they generally aren't turned into schwas, they don't get dropped and thus don't create consonant clusters. This is purely speculation. I just notice that German and English, for example, seem to have dropped quite a few vowels compared to Persian: setaare - star, baraadar - brother... Maybe this is how consonant clusters tend to come about (in some cases)? I wonder what specialists have to say about this. The underlying assumptions I'm using - languages generally used to have more simply sound systems and were more vowel-heavy - are of course questionable. Edited by druckfehler on 04 February 2014 at 1:34pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5605 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 3 of 15 04 February 2014 at 2:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, some people suppose that in tight mountenous spots like the Caukasus, a complicated, rich phoneme system can develop, but if languages strech out, like in the vast expanse of the ocean, the inventory tends to thin out, but that sounds like a load of bollocks. Language contact may play here usually the rôle.
I believe languages can behave very indidually, especially in its sounds. It is just their way. PS. Well, in the case of Persian, it was the other way round: برادر (brother) became barâdar from brâdar under the Arabic influence, which does not tolerate consonant clusters at the beginning of the Word. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4874 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 4 of 15 04 February 2014 at 2:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks, that's a really interesting piece of information, Cabaire!
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| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 4038 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 5 of 15 04 February 2014 at 4:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am speculating also on the grammar too, I know the whole story of Indonesian causing it to get esperanto like,
but I would expect Samoan or Hawaiian to in grow a bit. Are there dialects that are more irregular like older languages? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5966 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 6 of 15 04 February 2014 at 6:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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One thing to look for is if at some point in a language's history, the language was learned by a large number of non-native speakers. Non-native speakers tend to overgeneralize the grammar of the language and do away with exceptions. It's possible for these simplifications to then spread into the language use of even native speakers, especially those of following generations. Some linguists believe that this sort of process was responsible for the simplifications of languages like Persian and English.
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| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 4038 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 7 of 15 04 February 2014 at 7:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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These Austronesian speakers no doubt introduced their language to many other peoples through their expanse.
But there are cases of languages spreading yet not getting overgeneralized. Often absorbing new qualities too instead of just losing them. And perhaps the Austronesian languages were once more complex? Many native American languages are slowly losing animacy distinctions and tonality in some when spoken by younger generations. And even some Native American languages are much more complex than others that aren't spoken by Kingdoms, compare Greenlandic to Navajo and Navajo has classifiers, more consonants, and tonality (but Greendlandic still can give anyone a heart attack). This is something I wonder too. Was Maori hit and if, how was Maori exactly hit? Edited by Stolan on 04 February 2014 at 7:12pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4778 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 8 of 15 04 February 2014 at 8:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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