Re: Can relationships between languages be determined after 80,000 y

Clicks are certainly limited but since they exists as
phonemes, they need to be taken into account.
AFAIK -some of the Khoi-San langauges have the
greatest number of phonemes of any language, so they
weren't challenged for sounds, like say Hawaiian.
Besides the South African Sprachbund, Sandawe and
Hadza, there is supposedly a Cushitic language that
has clicks and they are used in some Australian
language for some specialized purpose (men's
language?).
Are they related to ingressives or ejectives somehow?
Besides clicks, what are the other "strange" phonemes
or phonetic systems?
Dravidian and Australian have lack of voiced and
aspirates but fine distinctions between articulation
points. Is this limited to those 2 groups?
English /T/ is a rare enough sound --AFAIK only found
in Europe in English, Icelandic, Faeroese, N. Spanish,
Albananian and Greek; in Asia in Burmese, Classical
Arabic; in the Americas in Shawnee and I don't know
where else.


--- Patrick Ryan <proto-language@...> wrote:

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> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "fournet.arnaud" <fournet.arnaud@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 11:20 AM
> Subject: Re: Re: [tied] Can relationships between
> languages be determined
> after 80,000 years?
>
>
> >
> > On 2008-01-29 11:00, fournet.arnaud wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> Piotr:
> > Using the same logic you will probably add clicks
> a whole array of
> > clicks to account for Khoisan and perhaps more
> places of articulation
> > (retroflex, palatal) to accommodate Australian and
> Dravidian, won't you?
> > =============
> > No
> > I would first try to connect retroflex and palatal
> with
> > tl dl tl?
> > and I will not add clicks to the system
> > but try to understand what suits best.
> > Arnaud
> > =========
>
> <snip>
>
> ***
>
> In my opinion, clicks are outside the normal
> phonological systems of the
> world, meaning they have no correspondents with
> non-clicks in any other
> language family.
>
> They are an African innovation that served the
> purpose of differentiating
> various meanings of words with affixation of
> non-click consonants and
> vowels.
>
> I must a little study of clicks (Schnalzlaute)
> before I wrote
>
> http://geocities.com/proto-language/c-NAMA-14.htm
>
>

http://geocities.com/proto-language/c-NAMA-14_table.htm

>
> The notation for them is quite misleading as to
> their phonological natures.
>
> Cluck your tongue in disapproval and try to relate
> that to a phone.
>
>
> Patrick
>

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