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Anyone learning click languages? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| joan.carles Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6333 days ago 332 posts - 342 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*, French, EnglishC1, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Hungarian, Russian, Georgian | Message 1 of 13 21 December 2008 at 1:48pm | IP Logged |
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To fight the cold of Calgary these days (hehe, I wish it helped) I'm learning some Bantu languages of Southafrica,
plus Afrikaans. In particular, I started Xhosa and Zulu, which are quite close. At least, if I don´t find an explanation in one's grammar or method, maybe I can find in the other´s. As far as grammar is concerned, I don´t see much difficulty. Of course there´s much to learn, different noun classes, agglunation of pronoun + verb, etc, but with time it can be mastered. What I found it difficult is how to produce click sounds and, most important, include them in the flux of the phrase. Has anyone learned any of these languages? Or maybe a Khoisan language that have also click sounds? Any advice, resource...? thanks 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| chelovek Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6087 days ago 413 posts - 461 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Russian | Message 2 of 13 21 December 2008 at 2:00pm | IP Logged |
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I actually started looking at Zulu today, just out of curiosity, and the grammar actually looked rather similar to Russian, what with the verb stem and the several different suffixes adding different levels of meaning.
Does it have cases? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| FrancescoP Octoglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5950 days ago 169 posts - 258 votes Speaks: Italian*, French, English, German, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Norwegian Studies: Georgian, Japanese, Croatian, Greek | Message 3 of 13 21 December 2008 at 4:33pm | IP Logged |
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What a coincidence! Me too... I have started to get interested in click languages a couple of days ago, and I'm toying with the idea of learning Xhosa. It seems to be a pretty popular language, in a way.
Yes, clicks are definitely hard to master (that's the kick). I think I got some down, but I'm not sure I'm articulating them the right way. The audio material at my disposal is really not professional, so I'm not even sure I'm hearing the right thing. There's a nice video on Youtube where a guy is showing some combinations, but right... using those babies in real time is no mean feat. I think I'll pick up the phonetic challenge, however, so keep me updated on your progress 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| shapd Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6149 days ago 126 posts - 208 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Modern Hebrew, French, Russian | Message 4 of 13 22 December 2008 at 5:02am | IP Logged |
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There is very little on the web, but try the late Peter Ladefoged's web site http://www.ladefogeds.com/course/contents.html. It is a huge resource of phonetics data, including a wide veriety of clicks.
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| FrancescoP Octoglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5950 days ago 169 posts - 258 votes Speaks: Italian*, French, English, German, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Norwegian Studies: Georgian, Japanese, Croatian, Greek | Message 5 of 13 22 December 2008 at 5:30am | IP Logged |
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Excellent site, but kind of discouraging. Those sample click words kind of sound the same to me... My phonetic ear needs some tuning-up. Besides, it's eerie how those clicks sound more like rhythmic counterpoint than actual consonants: it feels like they're pronounced at the same time as other sounds, as if a dwarf was playing the xylophone on somebody's teeth while he's speaking
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| shapd Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6149 days ago 126 posts - 208 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Modern Hebrew, French, Russian | Message 6 of 13 22 December 2008 at 7:07am | IP Logged |
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If you can find a copy of the book the examples are taken from, he does explain in some detail how the clicks are formed. Any university library should be able to get it. I think it is still in print. The secret is to close the back of the mouth at the same time as the click is being formed further forward, so there is a pocket of air to be released as the click between the two closures (that is why they are written as k or g in the phonetic alphabet). The various types of voicing are then just the same as for any other consonant. Of course, the difficulties do not stop there. Both Xhosa and Zulu have several lateral l sounds which do not exist in most European languages except perhaps Welsh and they are also tonal, which is not marked in the orthography.
Even after a trip to South Africa I cannot do a convincing alveolar click to get the authentic cork-out-of-a-bottle sound but I am still trying. However, I did notice that most non-Bantu speakers do not even try to pronounce them and Xhosa and Zulu speakers have just had to get used to clickless (and toneless) murderings of their language. Do not underestimate the difficulty of the grammar. The sheer number of noun classes takes some getting used to, and although it is an agglutinative language, there is a depressing number of affixes, some of which are used in several different contexts. The main reason I gave up on Zulu, however, was the lack of materials, even in SA bookshops. TYS is not bad but only gives you a very basic knowledge, and as usual half the CDs are explanations in English. There seem to be no good on line courses at all. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Hollow Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States luelinks.netRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6539 days ago 179 posts - 186 votes Speaks: French*, English*, SpanishB2 Studies: Korean | Message 7 of 13 22 December 2008 at 7:19am | IP Logged |
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Wow, sounds fascinating.
A question to those studying 'click languages' then: are clicks something your vocal chords/ whatever you use to make the clicks can get accustomed to? I've heard them on one or two occasions and (obviously) could not produce the sounds myself when I tried for a couple of seconds. Of course that was just me trying a totally new sound once, so... So for those of you studying, are you making good headway in speaking? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jimbo baby! Senior Member United States Joined 5977 days ago 202 posts - 208 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* | Message 8 of 13 22 December 2008 at 8:43am | IP Logged |
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KhoeKhoegowab sounds like it would be fun to learn. This is one of the video lessons on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz44WiTVJww
I tried making the click sounds and I could do about 3 of them, I couldn't really distinguish between the second and third click. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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