5 ms·

Syllables without vowels?

23 points by tintinnabula 11y ago

wwosik 11y ago
Well, it's a known phenomen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllabic_consonant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllabic_consonant E.g. in some West and South Slavic languages 'r' can be a syllable or its core, while in Polish it underwent a transformation into 'er' or 'rz' + vowel.
- mchaver 11y ago
  For an article that seems to be written for non-linguists, I'm not sure why they didn't focus a bit more on English since there are wealth of examples of "no vowel syllables" in fast speech and many dialects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_and_vowel_reduction_in_English#Syllabic_consonants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_and_vowel_reduction_in_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_words_without_vowels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_words_without_vowels
- BerislavLopac 11y ago
  A few Croatian examples, FWIW: prst: finger tvrd: hard krv: blood hrt: greyhound smrt: death trp: sea cucumber krt: without fat (e.g. meat) trk: act of running
  - anon4 11y ago
    Don't all these have a schwa when you say them?
    - BerislavLopac 11y ago
      Nope. http://forvo.com/word/prst/#hr http://forvo.com/word/prst/#hr
- taejo 11y ago
  German can even have two syllabic consonants in a row: "gefundenen" is usually pronounced something like "gefuntn̩n̩"
laurieg 11y ago
I find it fascinating how we can often consider our own native language the "obvious" way of doing things. I once had a frustrated student talk to me about a Japanese colleagues pronunciation. He said words like "fight" with the stereotypical vowel tacked onto the end so they became "fighto". I explained that Japanese is divided up in units like ka, bu, to and so on. The student replies "Why doesn't he just say the first half of 'to'?" to which I replied "Try saying the first half of 'b'".
- patio11 11y ago
  A way which I frequently use to defuse that sort of objection is "Many people speak with accents [+], but that typically means they speak another entire language, so try to be a charitable listener." A blunter way of putting it is "I will accept any criticisms of Dr. Yamada's English ability if you're capable of articulating them in Japanese." or "How's your Japanese?", both of which I've had regrettable need to use in professional contexts before. [+] Fellow linguists will know this is an abuse of jargon but it's the easiest way to communicate the concept to someone who isn't a linguist.
- thaumasiotes 11y ago
  To be fair, what the student wants is physically possible, while your challenge in response isn't. I watched an english teacher once convince a (native english-speaking) student that "handbag" is always pronounced as "hambag". This is not entirely true, but close enough that I wouldn't really object to it. I objected quite strongly to the method of convincing, which was to make the following argument: 1. /m/ is pronounced by closing the lips, whereas /n/ is not 2. OK, watch this other student articulate "handbag". Other student, please say "handbag". Even if you articulate the word so carefully that you release the /d/ of handbag, your lips will close immediately afterwards when you pronounce /b/. This style of arguing, we're better off without.
- white-flame 11y ago
  Yet there's no problem for a Japanese person to say 'n' without trailing into a connected vowel sound, and even using it as its own syllable. Just not with any other consonant. This confuses my gaijin brain. (Also, the first half of "b" is "m'". :-P)
dvh 11y ago
In Slovak language you can even have single consonant words: s=with, z=from, k=to, v=in. I'm currently cleaning up Slovak corpus and trying to find all the words without vowels but I have some 5000 more to go (there was 30000 words but most of them are shortcuts). I think there will be around ~300 words. Czech language will have more because they can use past tense masculine verb without vowel - SK: zhltol, CZ: zhltl (chrt prv zhltl hrst zrn - grayhound first swallowed handfull of seeds)
- thaumasiotes 11y ago
  This is interesting; a k can't be pronounced in isolation (s, z, and v, being fricatives, can). How does that k get realized in a sentence? Does it add on to the end of the previous word, or the beginning of the next one? What if it's in a really unfriendly context, e.g. following a word that ends with m (is this possible?) and preceding another word that begins with m?
  - dvh 11y ago
    idem k mame - (I go) to (mom), Only time when "k" changes into "ku" is if the next word start with k, g, q or x: ku Karolovi, ku Gustavovi, ku Quidovi, ku Xylofónu It is not added to previous or next word, but if you speak fast it would sound like m'lady in english. I don't have microphone here I'll check the waveform later. Previous word ending has no effect whatsoever: zemiak k mäsu - potato to meat (although in this case with Assimilation it may be pronounced as "zemiak g mäsu" or "zemiak g'mäsu")
- odiroot 11y ago
  Interesting, your "s" and "z" in Polish is just always "z". Your "v" is "w" instead.
janvdberg 11y ago
Aha! So that is where 'pg' got the cover art for his book Hackers & Painters from.
- BerislavLopac 11y ago
  No, this is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tower_of_Babel_%28Bruegel%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tower_of_Babel_%28Bruegel%...
Htsthbjig 11y ago
I don't think a(n spoken) language without vowels exist. In the article the mention Tashlhiyt Berber but then they put an example that actually HAS VOWELS. In "ssrksxt" there are not vowels in the script, but there are vowels in the sound. I can hear at least two of them. The fact that you don't write it down does not mean that it does not exist. For example in English "spoken" is pronounced like ES- POU -KEN(1), even when there is no "e" in the first S, actually the "e" vowel exist in the sound, and you use two pure sounds when there is only one "o" in the middle. On the other hand, vowels that exist on script does not need to exist in sound. The typical example is Make, wich actually sounds like MEIK. (1)If we consider pure vocal sounds as in Japanese, Spanish or Turkish. English ha no clear sounds for vowels, but mixes pure sounds.
- thaumasiotes 11y ago
  > For example in English "spoken" is pronounced like ES- POU -KEN(1), even when there is no "e" in the first S, actually the "e" vowel exist in the sound This isn't true, but Spanish speakers will pronounce it that way. Spanish doesn't allow sk- or sp- clusters at the beginning of words, so you can see exactly what the phenomenon you describe sounds like.
victorNicollet 11y ago
As a romanian speaker, I would transliterate the "ssrksxt" as "sîrxt", which contains the vowel "î" (similar to the turkish "ı"). Inserting that vowel between some consonants is how we pronounce what would otherwise be consonant-heavy words. Following the same rules, "I meet" is pronounced "ntmpin" (spelled întâmpin), and "song" is pronounced "cnt" (spelled cânt).
- msravi 11y ago
  Exactly. The audio sample on the page does exactly this. And yet, astonishingly, the author goes on to state: "...these types of syllables, astonishingly, really do not contain any vowels, epenthetic or otherwise" when in fact, there clearly is an epenthetic vowel after the s.
  - gliese1337 11y ago
    You are being betrayed by your brain's powerful ability to find patterns that aren't there. In this case, it's ability to fudge anything that sounds like speech to fit into the boxes for phonemes that you are familiar with. This what makes getting a good accent in a foreign language hard: if you don't train yourself properly, you won't be able to hear the correct pronunciations, let alone reproduce them consistently. The article addresses exactly this point, and acknowledges that plenty of other linguists already argued for it. The counter argument is "I fed this into a spectral analyzer, and there are no vowels on the spectrograph." Care to claim your ears are more accurate than the computer?
frobozz 11y ago
This article fails to define what it means by a vowel. It is impossible to have syllables without vowels if you use the phonological definition of vowel. In Devanagari, an abugida that makes a clear distinction between vowels and consonants, there are r and l vowels. A continuant in a vocalic position in a syllable is a vowel. A continuant in a consonantal position is a consonant. We see this in the opposite direction in English with word-initial 'w' and 'y', both are continuants that make a sound that could, in a vocalic position, likely be represented by one or more of the aforementioned vowels of the Roman alphabet. Non-continuants cannot occupy vowel positions, and there are no examples of this in the article. Even where, orthographically, a syllable is represented by a grapheme typically considered to represent a stop consonant (e.g. k in Slovak), this will normally represent the consonant and an unwritten vowel (e.g. a following schwa).
Zarathustra30 11y ago
Do the words "Wild" and "Child" have one syllable or two?
AnimalMuppet 11y ago
I seem to recall that at least around 1980, the Guinness Book of World Records said that the hardest tongue-twister in the world was a Czech phrase that translates "stick a finger in the throat". The whole phrase has no vowels in Czech.

23 points by tintinnabula 11y ago

Well, it's a known phenomen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllabic_consonant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllabic_consonant E.g. in some West and South Slavic languages 'r' can be a syllable or its core, while in Polish it underwent a transformation into 'er' or 'rz' + vowel.

mchaver 11y ago
For an article that seems to be written for non-linguists, I'm not sure why they didn't focus a bit more on English since there are wealth of examples of "no vowel syllables" in fast speech and many dialects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_and_vowel_reduction_in_English#Syllabic_consonants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_and_vowel_reduction_in_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_words_without_vowels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_words_without_vowels
BerislavLopac 11y ago
A few Croatian examples, FWIW: prst: finger tvrd: hard krv: blood hrt: greyhound smrt: death trp: sea cucumber krt: without fat (e.g. meat) trk: act of running
- anon4 11y ago
  Don't all these have a schwa when you say them?
  - BerislavLopac 11y ago
    Nope. http://forvo.com/word/prst/#hr http://forvo.com/word/prst/#hr
taejo 11y ago
German can even have two syllabic consonants in a row: "gefundenen" is usually pronounced something like "gefuntn̩n̩"

laurieg 11y ago

I find it fascinating how we can often consider our own native language the "obvious" way of doing things. I once had a frustrated student talk to me about a Japanese colleagues pronunciation. He said words like "fight" with the stereotypical vowel tacked onto the end so they became "fighto". I explained that Japanese is divided up in units like ka, bu, to and so on. The student replies "Why doesn't he just say the first half of 'to'?" to which I replied "Try saying the first half of 'b'".

patio11 11y ago
A way which I frequently use to defuse that sort of objection is "Many people speak with accents [+], but that typically means they speak another entire language, so try to be a charitable listener." A blunter way of putting it is "I will accept any criticisms of Dr. Yamada's English ability if you're capable of articulating them in Japanese." or "How's your Japanese?", both of which I've had regrettable need to use in professional contexts before. [+] Fellow linguists will know this is an abuse of jargon but it's the easiest way to communicate the concept to someone who isn't a linguist.
thaumasiotes 11y ago
To be fair, what the student wants is physically possible, while your challenge in response isn't. I watched an english teacher once convince a (native english-speaking) student that "handbag" is always pronounced as "hambag". This is not entirely true, but close enough that I wouldn't really object to it. I objected quite strongly to the method of convincing, which was to make the following argument: 1. /m/ is pronounced by closing the lips, whereas /n/ is not 2. OK, watch this other student articulate "handbag". Other student, please say "handbag". Even if you articulate the word so carefully that you release the /d/ of handbag, your lips will close immediately afterwards when you pronounce /b/. This style of arguing, we're better off without.
white-flame 11y ago
Yet there's no problem for a Japanese person to say 'n' without trailing into a connected vowel sound, and even using it as its own syllable. Just not with any other consonant. This confuses my gaijin brain. (Also, the first half of "b" is "m'". :-P)

dvh 11y ago

In Slovak language you can even have single consonant words: s=with, z=from, k=to, v=in. I'm currently cleaning up Slovak corpus and trying to find all the words without vowels but I have some 5000 more to go (there was 30000 words but most of them are shortcuts). I think there will be around ~300 words. Czech language will have more because they can use past tense masculine verb without vowel - SK: zhltol, CZ: zhltl (chrt prv zhltl hrst zrn - grayhound first swallowed handfull of seeds)

thaumasiotes 11y ago
This is interesting; a k can't be pronounced in isolation (s, z, and v, being fricatives, can). How does that k get realized in a sentence? Does it add on to the end of the previous word, or the beginning of the next one? What if it's in a really unfriendly context, e.g. following a word that ends with m (is this possible?) and preceding another word that begins with m?
- dvh 11y ago
  idem k mame - (I go) to (mom), Only time when "k" changes into "ku" is if the next word start with k, g, q or x: ku Karolovi, ku Gustavovi, ku Quidovi, ku Xylofónu It is not added to previous or next word, but if you speak fast it would sound like m'lady in english. I don't have microphone here I'll check the waveform later. Previous word ending has no effect whatsoever: zemiak k mäsu - potato to meat (although in this case with Assimilation it may be pronounced as "zemiak g mäsu" or "zemiak g'mäsu")
odiroot 11y ago
Interesting, your "s" and "z" in Polish is just always "z". Your "v" is "w" instead.

janvdberg 11y ago

Aha! So that is where 'pg' got the cover art for his book Hackers & Painters from.

BerislavLopac 11y ago
No, this is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tower_of_Babel_%28Bruegel%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tower_of_Babel_%28Bruegel%...

Htsthbjig 11y ago

I don't think a(n spoken) language without vowels exist. In the article the mention Tashlhiyt Berber but then they put an example that actually HAS VOWELS. In "ssrksxt" there are not vowels in the script, but there are vowels in the sound. I can hear at least two of them. The fact that you don't write it down does not mean that it does not exist. For example in English "spoken" is pronounced like ES- POU -KEN(1), even when there is no "e" in the first S, actually the "e" vowel exist in the sound, and you use two pure sounds when there is only one "o" in the middle. On the other hand, vowels that exist on script does not need to exist in sound. The typical example is Make, wich actually sounds like MEIK. (1)If we consider pure vocal sounds as in Japanese, Spanish or Turkish. English ha no clear sounds for vowels, but mixes pure sounds.

thaumasiotes 11y ago
> For example in English "spoken" is pronounced like ES- POU -KEN(1), even when there is no "e" in the first S, actually the "e" vowel exist in the sound This isn't true, but Spanish speakers will pronounce it that way. Spanish doesn't allow sk- or sp- clusters at the beginning of words, so you can see exactly what the phenomenon you describe sounds like.

victorNicollet 11y ago

As a romanian speaker, I would transliterate the "ssrksxt" as "sîrxt", which contains the vowel "î" (similar to the turkish "ı"). Inserting that vowel between some consonants is how we pronounce what would otherwise be consonant-heavy words. Following the same rules, "I meet" is pronounced "ntmpin" (spelled întâmpin), and "song" is pronounced "cnt" (spelled cânt).

msravi 11y ago
Exactly. The audio sample on the page does exactly this. And yet, astonishingly, the author goes on to state: "...these types of syllables, astonishingly, really do not contain any vowels, epenthetic or otherwise" when in fact, there clearly is an epenthetic vowel after the s.
- gliese1337 11y ago
  You are being betrayed by your brain's powerful ability to find patterns that aren't there. In this case, it's ability to fudge anything that sounds like speech to fit into the boxes for phonemes that you are familiar with. This what makes getting a good accent in a foreign language hard: if you don't train yourself properly, you won't be able to hear the correct pronunciations, let alone reproduce them consistently. The article addresses exactly this point, and acknowledges that plenty of other linguists already argued for it. The counter argument is "I fed this into a spectral analyzer, and there are no vowels on the spectrograph." Care to claim your ears are more accurate than the computer?

frobozz 11y ago

This article fails to define what it means by a vowel. It is impossible to have syllables without vowels if you use the phonological definition of vowel. In Devanagari, an abugida that makes a clear distinction between vowels and consonants, there are r and l vowels. A continuant in a vocalic position in a syllable is a vowel. A continuant in a consonantal position is a consonant. We see this in the opposite direction in English with word-initial 'w' and 'y', both are continuants that make a sound that could, in a vocalic position, likely be represented by one or more of the aforementioned vowels of the Roman alphabet. Non-continuants cannot occupy vowel positions, and there are no examples of this in the article. Even where, orthographically, a syllable is represented by a grapheme typically considered to represent a stop consonant (e.g. k in Slovak), this will normally represent the consonant and an unwritten vowel (e.g. a following schwa).

Zarathustra30 11y ago

Do the words "Wild" and "Child" have one syllable or two?

AnimalMuppet 11y ago

I seem to recall that at least around 1980, the Guinness Book of World Records said that the hardest tongue-twister in the world was a Czech phrase that translates "stick a finger in the throat". The whole phrase has no vowels in Czech.