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Austronesian phonemes. | ||
Tags: Phonetics | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 4034 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 9 of 15 13 February 2014 at 6:21pm | IP Logged |
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I looked into Marshallese and this seems to be a bit of an exception. It has 22 consonants and while there are 4
standard vowels, length and allophony leads to 12 in total and possibly as much as 24 diphthongs too. The grammar also looks more "busy" too. 5 degrees for distal demonstratives, and they distinguish between human and nonhuman and further exclusivity when using them for example. I read this in the Marshallese manual given so i hypothesise: Some of the damaging factor are westerners in their creation of Austronesian writing systems. They would translate word for word using western idioms and syntax when writing, this could of had a effect on how the language was learned by younger generations who needed to be retaught the language, but Marshallese remained unwritten for a longer time so it was less affected. Edited by Stolan on 13 February 2014 at 6:33pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Aquila123 Tetraglot Senior Member Norway mydeltapi.com Joined 5308 days ago 201 posts - 262 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Italian, Spanish Studies: Finnish, Russian | Message 10 of 15 14 February 2014 at 6:09am | IP Logged |
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Perhaps the reason for the apparently simple phonology heavily depending upon the vowels is purely practical. These people often navigate in boats and they probably have to shout a lot over distances to communiate and cooperate at sea. A language that mostly uses vowels to make the distinctions will be favourable under such circumstances.
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| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 4034 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 11 of 15 14 February 2014 at 9:58pm | IP Logged |
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Did you get that from reddit?
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| Aquila123 Tetraglot Senior Member Norway mydeltapi.com Joined 5308 days ago 201 posts - 262 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Italian, Spanish Studies: Finnish, Russian | Message 12 of 15 15 February 2014 at 4:38am | IP Logged |
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No, I thought it by my own, but the explanation is fairly easy to think of so others might have thought the same ways. Also the vowels in these languages tend to have severel allophonemes, so that they carry information about the consonants also to some extent. Edited by Aquila123 on 15 February 2014 at 5:25am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| LaughingChimp Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4701 days ago 346 posts - 594 votes Speaks: Czech* | Message 13 of 15 15 February 2014 at 2:52pm | IP Logged |
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How did you come to that conclusion? Why should vowels be better for communicating at the sea?
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| Aquila123 Tetraglot Senior Member Norway mydeltapi.com Joined 5308 days ago 201 posts - 262 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Italian, Spanish Studies: Finnish, Russian | Message 14 of 15 15 February 2014 at 5:57pm | IP Logged |
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Vowels can be made loader and therefore carry a longer distance. Also at sea there is a lot of high frequency noise that will jam consonant sounds like stops and spirants that are also of high frequency.
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| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 4034 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 15 of 15 25 February 2014 at 12:20am | IP Logged |
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I am not sure spending a few weeks at sea modifies the vowels so much, and if they did, why would it carry over
when they spend time on land? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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