Author Topic: Sound Comparisons (Read 4385 times)

Jonathon · « **on:** February 21, 2008, 06:57:45 PM »

Check out this Sound Comparisons site. It's got sound clips of different words from all over the English-speaking world, along with clips of other Germanic words and transcriptions of historic English words. I'm sure something like this has been posted before, but it's interesting nonetheless.

rivka · « **Reply #1 on:** February 21, 2008, 07:03:15 PM »

Pretty cool.

You can read all those symbols, right?

Jonathon · « **Reply #2 on:** February 21, 2008, 07:16:28 PM »

I'm not familiar with all the diacritical marks. I took phonology but not phonetics. Was there something you had a question about?

rivka · « **Reply #3 on:** February 21, 2008, 07:19:32 PM »

Not really. There are just so many! (And I have no idea what the distinction you just made means.)

Jonathon · « **Reply #4 on:** February 21, 2008, 07:43:08 PM »

Phonology is the study of sound systems in a language. Phonetics is the study of actual speech sounds. So those diacriticals say something about just how the person said the word (extra short vowel, slightly raised vowel, and so on).

Porter · « **Reply #5 on:** February 21, 2008, 07:49:54 PM »

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Phonology is the study of sound systems in a language. Phonetics is the study of actual speech sounds.

I still don't see how those are different things.

Jonathon · « **Reply #6 on:** February 21, 2008, 08:01:50 PM »

Hmm. I'm trying to decide if it's worth explaining, or if the explanation will just be full of technical jargon that won't mean a thing to you. Suffice it to say that phonetic transcriptions use more diacritical marks. But if you want a real explanation, I'd be happy to try to provide one.

Porter · « **Reply #7 on:** February 21, 2008, 08:04:42 PM »

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Suffice it to say that phonetic transcriptions use more diacritical marks.

Translation:

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Suffice it so say that something you don't understand used more of something else you don't understand.

That's OK.

Jonathon · « **Reply #8 on:** February 21, 2008, 08:13:00 PM »

*laugh*

Sorry about that. I think "diacritical mark" is basically a technical term for "accent mark."

rivka · « **Reply #9 on:** February 21, 2008, 08:42:51 PM »

*hazards a guess*

Phonology is more theoretical, and phonetics more practical?

Jonathon · « **Reply #10 on:** February 21, 2008, 08:44:24 PM »

In a nutshell, yes.

And you don't have to hazard a guess—I could give you a more detailed answer. I just didn't want to bore anyone to tears.

rivka · « **Reply #11 on:** February 21, 2008, 09:16:55 PM »

Nope, that's all I wanted to know. Mostly I agree with Porter's translation.

goofy · « **Reply #12 on:** February 22, 2008, 08:03:27 AM »

Phonology is the study of contrastive speech sounds, called phonemes. In English, /k/ and /g/ are separate phonemes. Replace one with the other and you get a different word: dock, dog.

Phonetics is the study of how speech is articulated and comprehended. The two contrastive phonemes /k/ and /g/ can sound quite different depending on the speaker, place in the word, and dialect. In my dialect, the phonetic difference between "dock" and "dog" isn't the last consonant, it's the vowel length. The vowel in "dog" is longer, and the last consonant is almost the same in both words. So a phonetician (which I sort of used to be) might look at spectrograms of these words and determine how much longer the vowel is and exactly what the difference is in the final consonant, if any. Phonetically the words might be represented as [d?k] and [d??k] where [?] indicates a longer vowel. But on a more abstract level, that is phonologically, they would be /d?k/ and /d?g/.

now that i've bored everyone to tears...

Neutros the Radioactive Dragon · « **Reply #13 on:** February 22, 2008, 08:16:28 AM »

And besides, k is the funniest consonant.

Jonathon · « **Reply #14 on:** February 22, 2008, 10:36:36 AM »

The Buckie accent (from northern Scotland) is just weird. Brother rhymes with breather, bone is somewhat like bane, and what sounds like fit.

The first two make some sense, but the last is strange. But it looks like white rhymes with fight, so obviously there's been a systematic change from /hw/ to /f/.

Jonathon · « **Reply #15 on:** February 22, 2008, 10:41:39 AM »

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In my dialect, the phonetic difference between "dock" and "dog" isn't the last consonant, it's the vowel length. The vowel in "dog" is longer, and the last consonant is almost the same in both words.

What is your dialect? I have the difference in vowel length, but it seems to me that there's still a distinction between the consonants. I think the /k/ in "dock" is aspirated, while the /g/ in "dog" is at least partially devoiced. But I'm not positive about that.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #16 on:** February 22, 2008, 10:50:34 AM »

In my dialect (Shvesterish) dock and dog are nowhere near close. They barely have the same number of syllables.

goofy · « **Reply #17 on:** February 22, 2008, 10:54:33 AM »

I'm in southern Ontario. My final /g/ isn't consistently devoiced, but it is sometimes I think. In "dogs", the final consonant is ~~not [z]. But judgments about my own speech are not very reliable.~~

Jonathon · « **Reply #18 on:** February 22, 2008, 12:13:51 PM »

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In my dialect (Shvesterish) dock and dog are nowhere near close. They barely have the same number of syllables.

I'm guessing you pronounce "dock" with the same vowel as "cot," while "dog" has the same vowel as "caught," neh?

Porter · « **Reply #19 on:** February 22, 2008, 12:26:12 PM »

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I'm guessing you pronounce "dock" with the same vowel as "cot," while "dog" has the same vowel as "caught," neh?

As do I!

Except that for me, "cot" and "caught" are pronounced exactly the same.

Jonathon · « **Reply #20 on:** February 22, 2008, 12:32:19 PM »

That's because you suffer from the affliction known as the cot/caught merger.

pooka · « **Reply #21 on:** February 22, 2008, 12:43:22 PM »

I don't know that it's quite right to say that phonetics is less theoretical. It's just that the theories involved are insanely complex.

Porter · « **Reply #22 on:** February 22, 2008, 12:50:23 PM »

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That's because you suffer from the affliction known as the cot/caught merger.

This affliction has not hampered me in any way.

Jonathon · « **Reply #23 on:** February 22, 2008, 12:52:44 PM »

Maybe "less abstract" would be better. I think goofy basically said that.

Jonathon · « **Reply #24 on:** February 22, 2008, 12:55:49 PM »

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This affliction has not hampered me in any way.

It has left you unable to distinguish between the man's name Don and the woman's name Dawn. Just try to tell me that this hasn't affected your quality of life.