Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with phonology

Vedic Sanskrit Phonology

Taksi Putra — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 13:59:22 -0800

Papers on Vedic Sanskrit phonology please. I've looked at a few papers e.g HH Hock Kessler etc. Any more resources?

How do you pronounce stressed them?

Inigo Jones — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 12:00:28 -0800

How do you pronounce them when it's stressed? For instance, "Don't give it to me, give it to THEM." I pronounce the stressed them so that it rhymes with bum. I'm trying to get a sense whether this is idiosyncratic with me, or whether it's a dialectical thing (and if so, which dialect).

I expect there to be some variation, but get the sense most people will pronounce it to rhyme with hem. Though maybe not.

So, how do you pronounce it?

What natural languages have unusual properties?

goodnewsfortheinsane — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 09:08:29 -0800

Hawaiian has only eight consonants. Pirahã purportedly has even fewer phonemes and no numerals. What other languages have properties which would be considered unusual by Indo-European language speakers?

How now, brown bureaucrat?

ijoshua — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 06:36:00 -0800

LinguaFilter: A phoneme comprised of two vowels, like the “ou” in “house” is called a dipthong. Is there a specific term for a phoneme made of two consonants, like the “sh” in “rash?”