There are 9 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Ejective Consonants a sign of Mountain Living
From: Jim T
1b. Re: Ejective Consonants a sign of Mountain Living
From: Adam Walker
1c. Re: Ejective Consonants a sign of Mountain Living
From: Roger Mills
1d. Re: Ejective Consonants a sign of Mountain Living
From: Herman Miller
1e. Re: Ejective Consonants a sign of Mountain Living
From: George Corley
1f. Re: Ejective Consonants a sign of Mountain Living
From: Padraic Brown
1g. Re: Ejective Consonants a sign of Mountain Living
From: Adam Walker
1h. Re: Ejective Consonants a sign of Mountain Living
From: R A Brown
1i. Re: Ejective Consonants a sign of Mountain Living
From: And Rosta
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Ejective Consonants a sign of Mountain Living
Posted by: "Jim T" clanrubyl...@yahoo.com
Date: Thu Jun 13, 2013 12:31 pm ((PDT))
Hi,
According to Wikipedia....
"Siouan language speakers may have originated in the lower Mississippi River
region and then migrated to or originated in the Ohio Valley. They were
agriculturalists and may have been part of the Mound Builder civilization
during the 9th–12th centuries CE.[1] In the late 16th and early 17th centuries,
Dakota-Lakota-Nakota speakers lived in the upper Mississippi Region in present
day Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas. Conflicts with Anishnaabe and
Cree peoples pushed the Lakota west onto the Great Plains in the mid- to
late-17th century.[1]"
I did a search of all those states only Mississippi might not have mountains
all the others most certainly do.
Jim :-)
--- On Thu, 6/13/13, BPJ <b...@melroch.se> wrote:
> From: BPJ <b...@melroch.se>
> Subject: Re: Ejective Consonants a sign of Mountain Living
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> Received: Thursday, June 13, 2013, 1:20 AM
> 2013-06-13 08:32, John Q skrev:
> > Well here's an interesting new theory -- Ejective
> consonants are apparently far more likely to be found in
> languages spoken in or near mountain ranges:
> >
> > http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10117037/Living-in-the-mountains-can-change-the-way-you-speak.html
> >
> > --John Q.
> >
>
> Like Lakhota? >;-)
>
> (Sorry, couldn't help myself...)
>
> /bpj
>
Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Ejective Consonants a sign of Mountain Living
Posted by: "Adam Walker" carra...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Jun 13, 2013 12:42 pm ((PDT))
Whatever they are calling a mountain in Iowa is just a bigger than
average pile of corn.
Adam
On 6/13/13, Jim T <clanrubyl...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> According to Wikipedia....
> "Siouan language speakers may have originated in the lower Mississippi River
> region and then migrated to or originated in the Ohio Valley. They were
> agriculturalists and may have been part of the Mound Builder civilization
> during the 9th�12th centuries CE.[1] In the late 16th and early 17th
> centuries, Dakota-Lakota-Nakota speakers lived in the upper Mississippi
> Region in present day Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas. Conflicts
> with Anishnaabe and Cree peoples pushed the Lakota west onto the Great
> Plains in the mid- to late-17th century.[1]"
>
> I did a search of all those states only Mississippi might not have mountains
> all the others most certainly do.
> Jim :-)
>
> --- On Thu, 6/13/13, BPJ <b...@melroch.se> wrote:
>
>> From: BPJ <b...@melroch.se>
>> Subject: Re: Ejective Consonants a sign of Mountain Living
>> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
>> Received: Thursday, June 13, 2013, 1:20 AM
>> 2013-06-13 08:32, John Q skrev:
>> > Well here's an interesting new theory --� Ejective
>> consonants are apparently far more likely to be found in
>> languages spoken in or near mountain ranges:
>> >
>> > http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10117037/Living-in-the-mountains-can-change-the-way-you-speak.html
>> >
>> > --John Q.
>> >
>>
>> Like Lakhota? >;-)
>>
>> (Sorry, couldn't help myself...)
>>
>> /bpj
>>
>
Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Ejective Consonants a sign of Mountain Living
Posted by: "Roger Mills" romi...@yahoo.com
Date: Thu Jun 13, 2013 1:46 pm ((PDT))
On 6/13/13, Jim T <clanrubyl...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> According to Wikipedia....
> "Siouan language speakers may have originated in the lower Mississippi River
> region and then migrated to or originated in the Ohio Valley. They were
> agriculturalists and may have been part of the Mound Builder civilization
> during the 9th–12th centuries CE.[1] In the late 16th and early 17th
> centuries, Dakota-Lakota-Nakota speakers lived in the upper Mississippi
> Region in present day Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas.
Conflicts
> with Anishnaabe and Cree peoples pushed the Lakota west onto the Great
> Plains in the mid- to late-17th century.[1]"
>
> I did a search of all those states only Mississippi might not have mountains
> all the others most certainly do.
> Jim :-)
------------------------------------------------------------------
No they don't. I grew up in that area, and the whole place is flat as a
pancake, thanks to the glaciers-- except for western South Dakota, where the
Black Hills are-- they are real mountains (rocky), not just overgrown hills,
which do exist in the area,mostly along river courses. How the Black Hills
escaped being ground down by the glaciers I don't know... In most of known
history, the Siouan people were semi-nomadic, not agriculturalist, though it's
certain good country for growing corn.
I'm aware that Siouan languages have distant cousins in the South but suspect
that was far in the past.. Relationship with the Mound Builders seems remote;
if true, then the Siouan people lost/gave up the idea.
What were the Cree doing that far west? I thought they were mainly an eastern
Canadian tribe....I'd be more inclined to blame Iriquoian/Chippewa/Ojibwe
people for pushing the Sioux to the west.
Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: Ejective Consonants a sign of Mountain Living
Posted by: "Herman Miller" hmil...@prismnet.com
Date: Thu Jun 13, 2013 5:54 pm ((PDT))
On 6/13/2013 4:20 AM, BPJ wrote:
> 2013-06-13 08:32, John Q skrev:
>> Well here's an interesting new theory -- Ejective consonants are
>> apparently far more likely to be found in languages spoken in or near
>> mountain ranges:
>>
>> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10117037/Living-in-the-mountains-can-change-the-way-you-speak.html
>>
>>
>> --John Q.
>>
>
> Like Lakhota? >;-)
>
> (Sorry, couldn't help myself...)
>
> /bpj
"The researchers, however, found that 87 per cent of languages that use
ejectives were found within 300 miles of an area of high altitude."
Which implies that 13 percent of languages with ejectives were found
more than 300 miles away from high altitude areas.
It's an interesting idea, associating phonological features with
geography. Even if it turns out to be coincidental, a conworld could use
some idea like this for the languages spoken in different areas. But why
would high altitude be associated with ejectives? More efficient use of
breath?
Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
1e. Re: Ejective Consonants a sign of Mountain Living
Posted by: "George Corley" gacor...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Jun 13, 2013 6:15 pm ((PDT))
On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 7:54 PM, Herman Miller <hmil...@prismnet.com> wrote:
> On 6/13/2013 4:20 AM, BPJ wrote:
>
>> 2013-06-13 08:32, John Q skrev:
>>
>>> Well here's an interesting new theory -- Ejective consonants are
>>> apparently far more likely to be found in languages spoken in or near
>>> mountain ranges:
>>>
>>> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/**science/science-news/10117037/**
>>> Living-in-the-mountains-can-**change-the-way-you-speak.html<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10117037/Living-in-the-mountains-can-change-the-way-you-speak.html>
>>>
>>>
>>> --John Q.
>>>
>>>
>> Like Lakhota? >;-)
>>
>> (Sorry, couldn't help myself...)
>>
>> /bpj
>>
>
> "The researchers, however, found that 87 per cent of languages that use
> ejectives were found within 300 miles of an area of high altitude." Which
> implies that 13 percent of languages with ejectives were found more than
> 300 miles away from high altitude areas.
>
> It's an interesting idea, associating phonological features with
> geography. Even if it turns out to be coincidental, a conworld could use
> some idea like this for the languages spoken in different areas. But why
> would high altitude be associated with ejectives? More efficient use of
> breath?
>
I found the actual paper;
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0065275 (The
Telegraph helpfully links PLOS but not the damn paper itself.)
Skimming over it, it seems that their argument is that it is easier to
produce high pressure in the pharynx at higher altitudes, because the
surrounding air is at a lower pressure. It's interesting, for sure, but I'd
have to spend some time reading to be sure about it.
OB conlang: My general thinking is that these sorts of trends don't need to
be considered that much when constructing a single conlang. Languages vary
so much that it's possible to find features in all places. The only things
that naturalistic conlangers really should consider is those things that
are completely unattested or extremely rare, and (most definitely) uncommon
features in their own native languages that they might naively insert into
a conlang without realizing it's not terribly common.
Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
1f. Re: Ejective Consonants a sign of Mountain Living
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Thu Jun 13, 2013 7:50 pm ((PDT))
--- On Thu, 6/13/13, Roger Mills <romi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I did a search of all those states only Mississippi
> > might not have mountains all the others most certainly do.
> > Jim :-)
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> No they don't. I grew up in that area, and the whole place
> is flat as a pancake, thanks to the glaciers-- except for
> western South Dakota, where the Black Hills are-- they are
> real mountains (rocky), not just overgrown hills, which do
> exist in the area,mostly along river courses. How the Black
> Hills escaped being ground down by the glaciers I don't
> know...
For what it's worth, glaciers don't necessarily grind mountains away.
After all, Antarctica and Greenland are teeming with both. I don't think
the Grinding Ice got as far as the Black Hills.
As far as ejective mountain dwellers, surely the Nepalese, living as they
do in the Himalayas, ought to be ejecting their consonants all over the
place?
Padraic
Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
1g. Re: Ejective Consonants a sign of Mountain Living
Posted by: "Adam Walker" carra...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Jun 13, 2013 8:33 pm ((PDT))
Swamp folk should have some serious ingressive action going on.
Adam
On 6/13/13, Padraic Brown <elemti...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- On Thu, 6/13/13, Roger Mills <romi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> > I did a search of all those states only Mississippi
>> > might not have mountains all the others most certainly do.
>> > Jim :-)
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>> No they don't. I grew up in that area, and the whole place
>> is flat as a pancake, thanks to the glaciers-- except for
>> western South Dakota, where the Black Hills are-- they are
>> real mountains (rocky), not just overgrown hills, which do
>> exist in the area,mostly along river courses. How the Black
>> Hills escaped being ground down by the glaciers I don't
>> know...
>
> For what it's worth, glaciers don't necessarily grind mountains away.
> After all, Antarctica and Greenland are teeming with both. I don't think
> the Grinding Ice got as far as the Black Hills.
>
> As far as ejective mountain dwellers, surely the Nepalese, living as they
> do in the Himalayas, ought to be ejecting their consonants all over the
> place?
>
> Padraic
>
>
Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
1h. Re: Ejective Consonants a sign of Mountain Living
Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com
Date: Fri Jun 14, 2013 4:03 am ((PDT))
On 14/06/2013 03:50, Padraic Brown wrote:
[snip]
>
> As far as ejective mountain dwellers, surely the
> Nepalese, living as they do in the Himalayas, ought to
> be ejecting their consonants all over the place?
Well, maybe the Nepalese, like the Tibetans, breathe a a
faster rate than others in high altitudes ;)
"The only region where ejective languages were absent was
the Tibetan plateau. This could be because people living in
the region have become uniquely adapted to the low oxygen at
high altitudes.
Studies have shown that Tibetan people breath at a faster
rate than other high altitude populations and they have also
been found to make more efficient use of the oxygen in the air."
Or maybe there's something about the Himalayas that do not
encourage the development of ejective consonants.
Or maybe the study concerned was flawed ;)
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"language � began with half-musical unanalysed expressions
for individual beings and events."
[Otto Jespersen, Progress in Language, 1895]
Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
1i. Re: Ejective Consonants a sign of Mountain Living
Posted by: "And Rosta" and.ro...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Jun 14, 2013 5:39 am ((PDT))
Folk dialectology often makes fanciful causal claims about the effect of
physical geography on phonetics.
I imagine it would be very difficult to collect data of sufficient quality
and quantity to test such claims empirically. What you'd really need is the
frequency of ejective allophones in dialects. I doubt that data exists
accessibly for English, let alone for less intensively studied languages.
But given that we know mountainous areas better preserve linguistic
diversity and that linguistic homogenization tends to eradicate the marked,
it may be that something related to ejectives is marked and therefore less
likely to be lost when in mountains.
--And.
On Jun 14, 2013 1:54 AM, "Herman Miller" <hmil...@prismnet.com> wrote:
> On 6/13/2013 4:20 AM, BPJ wrote:
>
>> 2013-06-13 08:32, John Q skrev:
>>
>>> Well here's an interesting new theory -- Ejective consonants are
>>> apparently far more likely to be found in languages spoken in or near
>>> mountain ranges:
>>>
>>> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/**science/science-news/10117037/**
>>> Living-in-the-mountains-can-**change-the-way-you-speak.html<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10117037/Living-in-the-mountains-can-change-the-way-you-speak.html>
>>>
>>>
>>> --John Q.
>>>
>>>
>> Like Lakhota? >;-)
>>
>> (Sorry, couldn't help myself...)
>>
>> /bpj
>>
>
> "The researchers, however, found that 87 per cent of languages that use
> ejectives were found within 300 miles of an area of high altitude." Which
> implies that 13 percent of languages with ejectives were found more than
> 300 miles away from high altitude areas.
>
> It's an interesting idea, associating phonological features with
> geography. Even if it turns out to be coincidental, a conworld could use
> some idea like this for the languages spoken in different areas. But why
> would high altitude be associated with ejectives? More efficient use of
> breath?
>
Messages in this topic (12)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/
<*> Your email settings:
Digest Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
conlang-nor...@yahoogroups.com
conlang-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
conlang-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
