December 14, 2005--The Labiodental Flap
Pay attention because this is a complicated story about language and culture and the way marginalized people occasionally manage to find a place for themselves in a world of hegemonic forces. So far so good, right?
This is about how African peoples who speak more than 70 distinct languages recently managed to get one of the sounds common to all of them included in the International Phonetic Alphabet—the Labiodental Flap. This is the first time in 12 years that the IPA has been amended; and as you will learn (1) this is difficult to achieve and (2) since by having one’s language recognized this way is literally a way to be put on an important map of the world, a number of other indigenous language speakers are attempting to do the same for their own special tones, stresses, and aspirations (literal aspirations—check the etymology for this).
Where else did I learn about this but in the ever-venerable NY Times (link below to full article).
The Labiodental Flap is a sound that is like a buzz that is sometimes enhanced by a faint pop. It is produced by the lower lip moving back and forth and by so doing flapping on the inside of the upper teeth—thus the Labio-Dental-Flap.
The Phonetic Alphabet was established in 1886 in an attempt to have graphic symbols that would represent all the distinct and unique sounds characteristic of all the then known languages of the world. They then numbered about 1,000; today there are more than 6,800. The IPA list has also evolved through the years, in effect to keep up with the identification of so many additonal languages, so that now there are 28 symbols for vowel sounds, 86 for consonants, and 75 others for tone, stress, aspiration, etc.
Things get more interesting, if I haven’t already lost you, when one looks a little more closely at how new symbols get included and often who is behind the effort to have them accepted.
Speakers of uncommonly-spoken languages (the PC way to describe them) come from very remote places and do not have representatives who lobby for them before the IPA folks. This occurs when either anthropologists, or much more typically, when Christian missionary groups make the case that they have identified a new stress or tone that is a strong candidate for inclusion in the IPA. Anthropologists might have as their motivation an interest in the sheer advancement of knowledge or at most are eager to have their favorite tribe, one perhaps that they spent a lifetime studying, recognized and thereby elevated in status by have their special click or flap recognized.
Missionary groups on the other hand become advocates so that the IPA can agree to a symbol that will allow them to capture all the linguistic nuances of people they are attempting to evangelize. If there is to be a proper Xhosa Bible available for their conversion work, then there must be a way to symbolize the unique Xhosa Side Click.
More work needs to be done—For example, there are two Brazilian languages, Oro Win and Warl’ that await having their Bilabial Trill included and one in the Philippines of particular interest to the leading language-oriented missionary group, where the sound they wish to capture is made by sticking the tongue out of the mouth, rather inelegant but a unique sound nonetheless. A Bible for these people requires its inclusion, though it will probably need to be plasic covered to protect it.
If any of this sounds at all strange to you, just think how you might feel if there were no IPA symbol for a sound unique to English—the vowel in “bird.”
So now you know how the Oro Wins feel. Not that good, right?
This is about how African peoples who speak more than 70 distinct languages recently managed to get one of the sounds common to all of them included in the International Phonetic Alphabet—the Labiodental Flap. This is the first time in 12 years that the IPA has been amended; and as you will learn (1) this is difficult to achieve and (2) since by having one’s language recognized this way is literally a way to be put on an important map of the world, a number of other indigenous language speakers are attempting to do the same for their own special tones, stresses, and aspirations (literal aspirations—check the etymology for this).
Where else did I learn about this but in the ever-venerable NY Times (link below to full article).
The Labiodental Flap is a sound that is like a buzz that is sometimes enhanced by a faint pop. It is produced by the lower lip moving back and forth and by so doing flapping on the inside of the upper teeth—thus the Labio-Dental-Flap.
The Phonetic Alphabet was established in 1886 in an attempt to have graphic symbols that would represent all the distinct and unique sounds characteristic of all the then known languages of the world. They then numbered about 1,000; today there are more than 6,800. The IPA list has also evolved through the years, in effect to keep up with the identification of so many additonal languages, so that now there are 28 symbols for vowel sounds, 86 for consonants, and 75 others for tone, stress, aspiration, etc.
Things get more interesting, if I haven’t already lost you, when one looks a little more closely at how new symbols get included and often who is behind the effort to have them accepted.
Speakers of uncommonly-spoken languages (the PC way to describe them) come from very remote places and do not have representatives who lobby for them before the IPA folks. This occurs when either anthropologists, or much more typically, when Christian missionary groups make the case that they have identified a new stress or tone that is a strong candidate for inclusion in the IPA. Anthropologists might have as their motivation an interest in the sheer advancement of knowledge or at most are eager to have their favorite tribe, one perhaps that they spent a lifetime studying, recognized and thereby elevated in status by have their special click or flap recognized.
Missionary groups on the other hand become advocates so that the IPA can agree to a symbol that will allow them to capture all the linguistic nuances of people they are attempting to evangelize. If there is to be a proper Xhosa Bible available for their conversion work, then there must be a way to symbolize the unique Xhosa Side Click.
More work needs to be done—For example, there are two Brazilian languages, Oro Win and Warl’ that await having their Bilabial Trill included and one in the Philippines of particular interest to the leading language-oriented missionary group, where the sound they wish to capture is made by sticking the tongue out of the mouth, rather inelegant but a unique sound nonetheless. A Bible for these people requires its inclusion, though it will probably need to be plasic covered to protect it.
If any of this sounds at all strange to you, just think how you might feel if there were no IPA symbol for a sound unique to English—the vowel in “bird.”
So now you know how the Oro Wins feel. Not that good, right?
posted by Steven Zwerling at
12:46 PM
1 Comments:
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