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I just realized...

  • “Nasal” begins with a nasal consonant.
  • “Fricative” begins with a fricative consonant.
  • “Sibilant” begins with a sibilant consonant.
  • “Plosive” begins with a plosive consonant.
  • “Lateral” begins with a lateral consonant.

8 Bizarre Sounds You've Probably Made Without Knowing It

theweek.com

1. Bilabial trill
What? When you roll an r, that’s a trill. What’s a bilabial trill? When you “roll” a b or a p
Who does that? Speakers of a few languages in Africa (Kom, Ngwe), Indonesia and New Guinea (Kele, Nias, Titan), the Pacific Islands (Unua), and South America (Pirahã, Wari’). 
When did I do that? Last time you blew a raspberry.

2. Pharyngeal fricative
What? Fricatives are sounds that buzz or hiss, like “s,” “z,” “f,” and “v.” Pharyngeal means you make the sound in your pharynx, which is deep in your throat.
Who does that? Lots of people. Speakers of Arabic, Hebrew, and Somali, but also speakers of some European languages (Galician, Maltese) and various North American indigenous languages. 
When did I do that? More than likely sometime when you were trying to clear your throat or cough up a popcorn hull.

When I was studying Arabic, I was taught to make a pharyngeal fricative (the voiceless one) by making the sound you make to clean your glasses by breathing on them. It worked pretty well. 

Art Inspired by Phonetics

image

“Dialogues” is a phonetics-inspired piece by designer Steve Haslip that is featured in the book, The Triumph of the Commons: 55 Theses on the Future. The collection explores traditional concepts of dystopia, and what it means to imagine the future through art.

(via The Triumph of the Commons)

Ants on my arm

I’m teaching 4-year-olds about the letter A tomorrow. Jolly Phonics is the book that my school uses, and the song for A is “Ah, ah, ants on my arm. Ah, ah, ants on my arm. Ah, ah, ants on my arm. They’re causing me alarm.” 

They’re causing me alarm? I’m teaching English as a foreign language to toddlers, and “they’re causing me alarm” is in the song that is supposed to help them figure things out? 

  • Pronunciation of the letter R in Brazilian Portuguese: They told me I could become anything, so I became like five things

informal question/survey for native English speakers...

How do you pronounce “with”? Is it [wɪθ], where the last sound is voiceless as in “thin”, “think” and “thought”, or [wɪð], where the last sound is voiced as in “the”, “this” and “though”?

Just wondering if I’m in the general minority or if it’s a regional thing. So if you want, reblog this with how you pronounce it and what dialect you speak. :) If I find anything interesting, I’ll post it!

“The beige hue on the waters of the loch impressed all, including the French queen, before she heard that symphony again, just as young Arthur wanted.”

An English phonetic pangram (a sentence using all phones found in English) created by Ollie Sayeed.

It even includes some rarer and borrowed English sounds, such as [ɱ] (symphony), [x] (loch), [ç] (hue), [ɫ] (all), and [ʍ] (queen).

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