City More Fun with Phonetics
posted by on May 7 at 15:17 PM
Regarding this post from way back in September on the proper pronunciation of Chief Sealth’s name, a linguist named Jim weighs in:
This is a really fascinating topic and the quote by Vi Hilbert is amazingly informative. It seems this thread was never really tied up and a number of confusions abound. Foremost, the transcription given by NW History Link has a typo. The ‘l’ character they use is the velarized ‘l’ or “dark l” that John refers to [in the comments on the original post]. But the sound Hilbert describes is a lateral fricative, which uses a very similar symbol where the line through the ‘l’ is not a wavy tilde, but rather more like a sash or a belt. You can check for yourself by looking at the Unicode points.1) “dark l” is pt. 026B
2) the ‘l’ with a belt is 026C
This means the closest transcription of Chief Seattle’s name the way it is described in the NW History Link essay is slightly altered from how they present it on that site, with the “l with a belt” as the final character. (I only wish I could write it here, but font compatibility would undoubtedly conspire to make this useless.)
Now, what would this sound like? “Velarized l”? “Lateral fricative”? What the heck does any of this mean, you might ask. Well they are actually not as exotic as they sound. A lateral fricative (the correct last sound in Sealth’s name) is actually very similar to the pronunciation of ‘s’ by many people who have a lisp. The lateral part just means that only one side of the tongue is being used, so either the left or right side of the tongue makes contact with the roof of the mouth but large amounts of air pass over the other side. Many people who lisp have difficulty forming the grooved tongue shape required for ‘s’ and instead pronounce it in just this way.
‘Velarized l’ is not exotic at all. We use it all the time in English. Compare how you pronounce the ‘l’ in ‘lap’ to how you say it in ‘pall.’ In ‘lap’, it is word initial and made almost entirely in the front of the mouth. In ‘pall,’ your tongue pulls back, giving the ‘l’ a quality that phoneticians call ‘velarized’.
This leaves one thing still uncovered, and this is the most interesting in my opinion. The ‘glottalized’ sound that Vi Hilbert refers to as having once been used in the pronunciation. This was misinterpreted by some above to mean that somehow the back of the throat or tongue was used during this ‘l’ sound. Judging by Hilbert’s description of the sound as ‘an explosive sound’, this is definitely not the case. Rather, this glottalization is a forceful tightening and raising of the glottis (or larynx…) during pronunciation. This is what is called an ‘ejective’ sound and is usually marked with an apostrophe after the letter. Since Lushootsheed (the language we are speaking about here) makes use of a number of ejective sounds such as t’, k’, ch’, etc… it seems very reasonable to think that the lateral fricative at the end of Sealth’s name was also at one point an ejective sound. Many other Native American languages also use these sounds and they are also found in African languages, such as Amharic. If we like that version of the story (and I certainly do), then the best version of the Chief’s name we can transcribe would also have an apostrophe ’ after the “l with a belt.”
Thinking of the final sound in the Chief’s name, one can see how “lth” might be a better guide to pronunciation than ‘ttle.” Either is pretty poor though—the problem really though isn’t with either version (Seattle or Sealth) but with using English orthography for a very non-English language.
“The whites, too, shall pass—perhaps sooner than other tribes. Continue to contaminate your own bed, and you might suffocate in your own waste.”—Chief Sealth
I figured there was some sort of disconnect between that site's description and the IPA and the transliteration. I was inclined in the beginning to opt for the voiceless lateral fricative sound, and because of my love of Nahuatl, I should've trusted that instinct. The funny thing about IPA is that it looks and usually is really authoratative, but it's really only as good as its transcriber's knowledge of the symbols and sounds.
Oh, but I still do not agree with the "Sealth" transliteration, since almost without question does the "t"-seeming sound occur before the lateral sound. In fact, it is nearly impossible to have a lateral sound without there being some portion of the center of the tongue's making contact behind the teeth. And since "th" has its own value as a phoneme (and not usually indicating a t and then an ejective), I find it confusing and useless in transliteration. "SEATTLE" still does the job better; it's just that most people, when saying it, voice the L and don't know to eject at the end.
I AM THE ONLY PERSON WHO CARES ABOUT THIS. THIS IS SO EMBARRASSEEN.
Maybe not the only person who cares, but the only person who feels a need to add to the discussion. I don't know enough about the topic to think beyond 'that's interesting'. I read it, and thought about it, but have nothing to add to the conversation.
Sealh.
Seal'h.
Seatl'.
Seahlh.
Any of these is better.
Just insert them and let the system provide the appropriate font fallback like this: U+026B (ɫ), U+026C (ɬ). As long as the system provides a system font with IPA extensions (U+0250 through U+02AF) and a fallback mechanism it should work.
Chief Seattle's name is written in Lushootseed on the history marker in Pioneer Square (a saying of his is on one side in English, on the other in Lushootseed). That transcription uses a barred lambda for the affricated voicless lateral in question here.
Incidentally, the voiceless lateral sound occurs in Welsh, spelled "ll" in words like "Lloyd" etc.
That's the reason for the confusion ebsur.
The 'barred lambda' is the Lushootseed spelling for the sound we're talking about. The belted l is the IPA symbol for this sound. (U+026C)
People have been confusing the Lushootseed letter with the (similar-looking) IPA letter with the wavy line (U+026B above).
The sound that the Lushootseed linguist describes is definitely the belted l.
BTW re:spect, your characters show up as empty boxes on my screen so I guess it isn't that easy.
Finally. True clarity. I hadn't thought about the confusion being found in similar symbols shared between IPA and a transliteration. I think Will has solved it. Thanks, man!
Err, the "barred lambda" is IPA, isn't it? Or is it just used by Americanists? ... Okay, after checking my IPA chart, I guess it's just used by Americanists, but it's the symbol for a lateral affricate (widely used by linguists working on American Indian lgs, not just in the Lushootseed orthography) (in IPA would be t + lateral fricative). As an affricate that explains the glottalization (there are languages with glottalized fricatives but it's rare). From what I gather from these discussions, back then his name ended with a glottalized lateral affricate, but modern Lushootseed has apparently lost the affricate (but still has the lateral fricative). Glottalized lateral affricates are very commonly found in the NW sprachbund and throughout the Salish language family. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salishan_languages
Or! Only the pronunciation of Chief Seattle's name - not the language as a whole - lost the affricate and is now pronounced with a fricative. After rereading what the History Link article said it's not clear whether it applies to the language or the word. And I have phoneme charts for Interior Salish languages but not Coast Salish and can't check.
And no, Nick, you're not the only one interested. I, btw, am procrastinating writing a paper on an Interior Salish language right now that's due tomorrow afternoon and I really need to get off the stupid internet.
rtw : "...it's the symbol for a lateral affricate (widely used by linguists working on American Indian lgs, not just in the Lushootseed orthography)"
Duh...where would the Lushootseed orthography come from if not linguists working on the language? They may have had their own writing system that we don't know of today, but they certainly didn't devise a system on their own that shared 90% of our alphabet!!
Anyway, I wasn't claiming that the 'barred l' was only Lushootseed, just that it was not IPA for a lateral fricative.
wow-there are a lot of really smart people in the world. can you please use some of your smartness to do something meaningful?
...about *your* situation?
Will @12: barred l is IPA for lateral fricative. I think you meant barred lambda, though, which isn't IPA for lateral affricate (because IPA analyzes affricates as stop + fricative and not as single phonemes), but I was trying to say that it's widely used by linguists anyway. IPA is great in theory but isn't used universally; linguists adapt it to their needs depending on the languages they're working on and the tradition of the area.
So the chief's name ended with a glottalized affricate; these days it would be pronounced with a fricative; the History Link article uses the symbol for a velarized l instead of a barred l. "Duh"?... Okay.
@13: Language documentation and revitalization are meaningful.
Aah..I thought we were just writing 'lambda' to mean 'l' because an 'l' by itself is so hard to distinguish from capital 'eye', lowercase 'el', and so forth. That was my impression from the NW History Link article too since it says 'barred lambda' and then puts the velarized 'el' in the transcription.
Either way, barred 'l' ain't a lateral fricative, 'belted l' is as the person who wrote the post points out. These word games point out the whole problem though--what does 'barred' mean when the two options are 'belted' or with a tilde thru the middle? I took 'barred' to mean the latter, you took it to mean the first.
As for 'barred lambda', he and I have never met. I don't have a clue who he is or what sound he represents.
I agree with you wholeheartedly on your response to (13).
Gotcha. Ha, so illustrative of how misunderstandings happen. Here's a barred lambda: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Barred_lambda.svg. And I refer to a lateral fricative as 'barred el', yeah. I've been trying to find a Salish phoneme chart using the Americanist system to link to online but can't. Oh well. Linguistics is fascinating and things aren't as simple as they first appear - even with the IPA, which is supposed facilitate communication and make transcription easy. Salish languages are wonderful and complex and I hope the revitalization efforts that are underway these days are successful.
Err, okay, the link didn't work, but it's the symbol at the bottom of the Wikipedia entry on Lushootseed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lushootseed (below 'external links'). You can click on the image and it'll supersize it - that's the link I was trying to give.
Hello everyone, wanna be part of some kind of community, possible here? anyone here?
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