3 ms·

> one of the rarer sounds in the worlds languages Is that true? Seems like it's in every other word when I visit Spain...

by geocar 1y ago

jkaplowitz 1y ago
It’s true. English and the main Spain version of Spanish are two of the few languages in the world which have the sound. Even most Latin American versions of Spanish (maybe all?) do not have it.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  Can you give an example of a common Spanish word that has it?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - petesergeant 1y ago
    cien
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - jaggederest 1y ago
    In "distinción" spanish, the classic pair is the word for house and for hunt - "casa" and "caza" respectively. If you pronounce them the same (with an S sound), you're a Seseo speaker like (most) latin america. If you pronounce them with different sounds, one an S sound, the other a TH sound, you're a "distinción" speaker, and if you pronounce them both with a TH sound, it's the more uncommon ceceo accent, usually largely Andalusian.
  - pezezin 1y ago
    My favourite word to troll people who are learning the language is "cerrojo" /θe'roxo/, meaning "latch" or "lock", as it contains the three most difficult consonants in the language in sequence xD
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      In Polish there is 'szczoteczka', which took me just about forever to learn how to pronounce. I just could not hear what I was doing wrong.
      - usrnm 1y ago
        Same word in Russian is "щёточка". The lengths to which Poles are willing to go instead of just using Cyrillic will never stop to amuse me :D
        black_knight 1y ago
        I struggled quite a bit with "существительное" when learning Russian.
        usrnm 1y ago
        I was talking about spelling. I can clearly see how these clusters of consonants characteristic of all Slavic languages can be a pain for a beginner, no matter how you spell them.
        kakacik 1y ago
        No Cyrillic imports, thank you. Russia decided to be the bully and murderer of its closest neighbors, don't need any more russian influence, even if literally just on paper. The further one is from them the more safety and prosperity there is, in every possible way.
        usrnm 1y ago
        Dude, this is a linguistics thread. Ukrainian also uses Cyrillic, btw
        int_19h 1y ago
        And Cyrillic is, if anything, Bulgarian originally.
  - mejutoco 1y ago
    Any c+e/i (cena, cine) or z+a/o/u (zarza, zorro, zurrar) is a good heuristic. c+a/o/u sounds like k (casa, cosa, cuchara) and z+e/i does not exist.
    - pezezin 1y ago
      Z+e/i does exist, but it is not very common. A few examples: - Words that are only written with Z: zepelín, zigurat, zigzag. - Words that can be written with either Z or C: zénit, zinc, zirconio, azimut.
      - mejutoco 1y ago
        I stand corrected. All of those seem loanwords, but you are absolutely right. My main point is that if you hear the sounds "th" (za) with e or i 99% it is cena or circo and will not be zena or zirco. It is an heuristic but very reliable. P.S. Or pececín, as a random example :P
        pezezin 1y ago
        You are right, and yes, my nickname is an intentional misspelling from the old cybercafe days when I was a silly teenager trying to look cool xD
somat 1y ago
I know Japanese does not have a th sound, and I don't think chinese or most other asian languages have it, but am less sure about that. Unfortunately I lack the data needed to substantiate my claim. with lang_sounds as ( select lang, unnest(string_to_array(ipa, null) ) as sound from world_dictionary ), totals as ( select lang, count(sound) as sound_count from lang_sounds group by lang ) select lang, totals.sound, count(sound) / totals.sound_count from lang_sounds join totals on lang_sounds.lang = totals.lang where sound = 'θ' or sound = 'ð' or sound = 'θ̠' or sound = 'z' group by lang, sound order by count(sound) / totals.sound_count
- eru 1y ago
  > I know Japanese does not have a th sound, and I don't think chinese or most other asian languages have it, [...] There's no single th sound in English. There's a few different sounds you get from that letter combination in different words (and in different dialects).
- yorwba 1y ago
  https://phoible.org/parameters https://phoible.org/parameters has the data you seek: 5% of languages in the database have eth (ð) and 4% have theta (θ). Z is not a 'th' sound and fairly common at 30% of languages, though.
- inkyoto 1y ago
  Out of all Asian languages (East and South East) I can think of, only Burmese has ð and θ.
jenzig 1y ago
This is just a feature of Castilian Spanish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Spanish_coronal_fricatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Spanis... \th\ only occurs naturally in like 5% of the thousands of human languages that have ever existed. Just because those languages are some of the most widely-spoken ones worldwide does not make the sound a commonly-occurring one in a meaningful phonological sense.

> one of the rarer sounds in the worlds languages Is that true? Seems like it's in every other word when I visit Spain...

by geocar 1y ago

> one of the rarer sounds in the worlds languages Is that true? Seems like it's in every other word when I visit Spain...

jkaplowitz 1y ago

It’s true. English and the main Spain version of Spanish are two of the few languages in the world which have the sound. Even most Latin American versions of Spanish (maybe all?) do not have it.

jacquesm 1y ago
Can you give an example of a common Spanish word that has it?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- petesergeant 1y ago
  cien
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- jaggederest 1y ago
  In "distinción" spanish, the classic pair is the word for house and for hunt - "casa" and "caza" respectively. If you pronounce them the same (with an S sound), you're a Seseo speaker like (most) latin america. If you pronounce them with different sounds, one an S sound, the other a TH sound, you're a "distinción" speaker, and if you pronounce them both with a TH sound, it's the more uncommon ceceo accent, usually largely Andalusian.
- pezezin 1y ago
  My favourite word to troll people who are learning the language is "cerrojo" /θe'roxo/, meaning "latch" or "lock", as it contains the three most difficult consonants in the language in sequence xD
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    In Polish there is 'szczoteczka', which took me just about forever to learn how to pronounce. I just could not hear what I was doing wrong.
    - usrnm 1y ago
      Same word in Russian is "щёточка". The lengths to which Poles are willing to go instead of just using Cyrillic will never stop to amuse me :D
      - black_knight 1y ago
        I struggled quite a bit with "существительное" when learning Russian.
        usrnm 1y ago
        I was talking about spelling. I can clearly see how these clusters of consonants characteristic of all Slavic languages can be a pain for a beginner, no matter how you spell them.
      - kakacik 1y ago
        No Cyrillic imports, thank you. Russia decided to be the bully and murderer of its closest neighbors, don't need any more russian influence, even if literally just on paper. The further one is from them the more safety and prosperity there is, in every possible way.
        usrnm 1y ago
        Dude, this is a linguistics thread. Ukrainian also uses Cyrillic, btw
        int_19h 1y ago
        And Cyrillic is, if anything, Bulgarian originally.
- mejutoco 1y ago
  Any c+e/i (cena, cine) or z+a/o/u (zarza, zorro, zurrar) is a good heuristic. c+a/o/u sounds like k (casa, cosa, cuchara) and z+e/i does not exist.
  - pezezin 1y ago
    Z+e/i does exist, but it is not very common. A few examples: - Words that are only written with Z: zepelín, zigurat, zigzag. - Words that can be written with either Z or C: zénit, zinc, zirconio, azimut.
    - mejutoco 1y ago
      I stand corrected. All of those seem loanwords, but you are absolutely right. My main point is that if you hear the sounds "th" (za) with e or i 99% it is cena or circo and will not be zena or zirco. It is an heuristic but very reliable. P.S. Or pececín, as a random example :P
      - pezezin 1y ago
        You are right, and yes, my nickname is an intentional misspelling from the old cybercafe days when I was a silly teenager trying to look cool xD

somat 1y ago

I know Japanese does not have a th sound, and I don't think chinese or most other asian languages have it, but am less sure about that. Unfortunately I lack the data needed to substantiate my claim. with lang_sounds as ( select lang, unnest(string_to_array(ipa, null) ) as sound from world_dictionary ), totals as ( select lang, count(sound) as sound_count from lang_sounds group by lang ) select lang, totals.sound, count(sound) / totals.sound_count from lang_sounds join totals on lang_sounds.lang = totals.lang where sound = 'θ' or sound = 'ð' or sound = 'θ̠' or sound = 'z' group by lang, sound order by count(sound) / totals.sound_count

eru 1y ago
> I know Japanese does not have a th sound, and I don't think chinese or most other asian languages have it, [...] There's no single th sound in English. There's a few different sounds you get from that letter combination in different words (and in different dialects).
yorwba 1y ago
https://phoible.org/parameters https://phoible.org/parameters has the data you seek: 5% of languages in the database have eth (ð) and 4% have theta (θ). Z is not a 'th' sound and fairly common at 30% of languages, though.
inkyoto 1y ago
Out of all Asian languages (East and South East) I can think of, only Burmese has ð and θ.

jenzig 1y ago

This is just a feature of Castilian Spanish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Spanish_coronal_fricatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Spanis... \th\ only occurs naturally in like 5% of the thousands of human languages that have ever existed. Just because those languages are some of the most widely-spoken ones worldwide does not make the sound a commonly-occurring one in a meaningful phonological sense.