Any glottal stops down your way?

Subject: RE: Any glottal stops down your way?
From: AKS
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 03:36 AM

In Finnish, the words beginning with a vowel, in fact begin with a glottal stop, much the same way as in German. Then we have a few occasions where the glottal stop occurs at the end of the word, where it behaves just like the rest of the consonants (=assimilates with next c). It is not a "full" phoneme and there's no letter for it in ortography, though one could name some minimal pairs on it, eg Anna (name) vs anna' 'give!'(imperative singular).
The gs does not occur in the middle of the word, in Fin.

Glottis, btw, is the organ that produces the fundamental frequency of human voice, the vocal cord.

AKS

Subject: RE: Any glottal stops down your way?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 04:48 AM

Well, let's see if we can straighten out some of you folks... [insert stupid little smiley face thing here]

AKS: You're half right, kind of. There are two vocal cords. (The correct anatomical term is "vocal folds" or "vocal ligaments," but even my pedanticism has its limits!) The organ that produces the voice is the larynx, which contains the vocal cords. The glottis is in fact the space between the vocal cords. Now you know!

Jim: First, you were right, of course. And I did catch somebody!

Second, you can tell precisely when you have executed a true glottal stop: you can't breathe. That is, no air can pass in or out of the trachea (windpipe) when the glottis is closed. Try holding your breath and you'll probably get it.

Third, you're right that the difference between a "hard" and "soft" glottal stop is related to air pressure. It's more like the difference between an initial "P" (the P in "Pa") and an ending "P" (the P in "up") for most English speakers. One ends with a puff of air and the other doesn't. The speech pathologists say that one consonant is "aspirated." (If you listen to a native Russian speaker you'll notice that they don't aspirate their initial P's and T's.) However, this is not like the difference between "P" and "B", which has to do with whether your vocal cords are vibrating when you make the sound. B is "voiced" and P isn't. But you were on the right track!

Here is a fascinating video of the larynx during breathing, taken through a laryngoscope, that shows the vocal cords opening and closing. At one point the glottis is closed. (I'm not sure if everybody will be able to see the movie.) Here is a diagram of what you're looking at in the video.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Any glottal stops down your way?
From: InOBU
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 02:07 PM

Glottal stops? Nope, just the sound of pints going down at the Half King where... SORCHA DORCHA will be at the HALF KING restaurant and pub, this Wends. Saint Patrick's Day on 23rd street between 10th and 11th Ave. from 7 pm to 10 ... As expected Lorcan Otway on vocals uilleann pipes flute whistle bodhran and the great Jane Kelton on flute whistle and key board, Seanin An Fear on Mandolin, Joe Charupakorn on guitar... the joint is already rumbling, so stay from Give us a drink of water to An Phis Fluich, all yer ol' favs...
Cheers, Is mise, le meas, Lorcan Otway

Subject: RE: Any glottal stops down your way?
From: AKS
Date: 17 Mar 04 - 07:02 AM

Of course, Mark, I seem to have tried to be a bit too brief...:-)

The glottal stop, btw, is called "laryngal plosive/stop" (laryngaaliklusiili in Fin) by the Fennists (those who study Finnish - academically that is) here.

AKS

Subject: RE: Any glottal stops down your way?
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Mar 04 - 07:51 AM

Nobody has mentioned the northern English practice of using a glottal stop instead of "the". This is usually written as a " t' " as in "down t'pit", but it sure isn't pronounced as a "t".

Subject: RE: Any glottal stops down your way?
From: Cluin
Date: 17 Mar 04 - 09:05 AM

You hear a more pronounced glottal stop in the Glaswegian accent than the Edinburghian one, I found.

Subject: RE: Any glottal stops down your way?
From: open mike
Date: 17 Mar 04 - 11:06 AM

I thought this was a thread about yodelling!
and there is a great song on cathy fink and marcy marxer's
kids album teaching a yodel....where they alternate
ahhh-eeee-ahhh-eeee with notes of a fifth interval apart...
little-old-lady-who ?

fascinating videos, mark,

the thing that hands down between the tonsils is the Epiglottis...
i remember a cartoon where some character was hitting it with
boxing gloves on as if it were one of those boxing thingies...

and yes, uh uh has a definate glottal stop between the "uh's"

Subject: RE: Any glottal stops down your way?
From: Firecat
Date: 17 Mar 04 - 04:10 PM

Well, I'm in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, and I do tend to use glottal stops sometimes, especially when I'm chatting to my friends (my accent goes a lot broader then!!). Mind you, I tend to lose my accent a bit when I'm working, and I lose it completely when I'm singing, so it completely depends on what I'm doing.

Subject: RE: Any glottal stops down your way?
From: GUEST,dulcimer
Date: 17 Mar 04 - 07:38 PM

I grew up in Michigan and ending "t"s were usually glottal stops. "What" was pronounced "Wha'" with that "stop" at the end of it.   Same with words like It, that, caught, bat, ...... on and on. Ending t was a glottal sound.    Maybe we were just lazy talkers in Flint, where I grew up.

Subject: RE: Any glottal stops down your way?
From: GUEST,padgett
Date: 18 Mar 04 - 04:48 AM

try the Yokshire 'tint in tin'
it isn't in the tin

werz tha bin?

where have you been?

hey up thee (hey up dee ~ Sheffield)

Hello, how are you?

Of course Eastenders have alot to answer for, the Londoners' accent is responsible for the lost 'T' in many cases a ~ definite deterioration/corruption of the English language

Subject: RE: Any glottal stops down your way?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Mar 04 - 04:16 PM

Like Serbocroatian (if one still dares call it that) and Lithuanian, Latvian has preserved a tonal system. One of the three tones involves a glottal stop; pitch falls after the stop.

Stephen

Subject: RE: Any glottal stops down your way?
From: GUEST,dulcimer
Date: 18 Mar 04 - 05:52 PM

How bout Kitten, mitten, cotten?   Do you really say those t's? I admit to glottal stops in the middle of those words.

Subject: RE: Any glottal stops down your way?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 09:08 AM

the northern English practice of using a glottal stop instead of "the".

I'm not sure if it is a glottal stop technically or not, but if nt it's very similar.

And something that is also similar to that, in a way, is what Neil Armstrong said when he stepped on the Moon - it's always quoted as "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind", and there are all jokes about him for missing out the "a" before man. I don't think he did miss it out, I think he articulated it with a kind of glottal stop - "That's one small step fr ' man, one giant leap for mankind,"

Subject: RE: Any glottal stops down your way?
From: gnomad
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 01:32 PM

I'm surprised to see nothing from a Hull member. I grew up there and had a fairly ripe local accent, of which the dominant feature was the glottal stop (as my despairing parents were only too willing to tell me!).

I have pretty much lost it now after 20+ years away, but talking with natives reminds me, and I'm sure it will still be prevalent in the area.

Subject: RE: Any glottal stops down your way?
From: cowbun
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 02:59 PM

Oce went to Otley locals say O;leey funny its nea Bradford better known as Bra;fud

Subject: RE: Any glottal stops down your way?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 11:48 PM

Uh, sorry, open mike, but the epiglottis is the flaplike structure that swings down to cover the glottis when you swallow. You can't usually see it without a laryngoscope, though I sometimes do in small children who can open their mouths very wide.

You may remember the Gary Larson cartoon, showing somebody looking at a test paper that said "Medical School Final Exam, Extra Credit Question: What do you call that thing that hangs down in the back of your throat?"

The answer is: the uvula. It means "little grape."

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Any glottal stops down your way?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 03:38 PM

PS--AKS, you got me this time..."plosive" is the right word.

A,
M

Subject: RE: Any glottal stops down your way?
From: Cluin
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 07:50 PM

Mark, re the uvula... an old girlfriend of mine used to call hers the cumcatcher.

Oops, did I say that out loud?

Subject: RE: Any glottal stops down your way?
From: Peace
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 09:34 PM

I thought she was a character on Star Trek. The lady officer. Well, live and learn. It then isn't that time of the month fo girls? You know, when the egg drops? (As in, she's uvulating!)

Subject: RE: Any glottal stops down your way?
From: Allan C.
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 11:52 PM

Please pardon my ingorance. I've seen numerous references to "RP". What does that mean?

Subject: RE: Any glottal stops down your way?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 02:23 AM

Royal Pain, of course. No, actually I believe it's Received Pronunciation. I recall learning about that in a linguistics course in college. I'll let other more informed types give more details.

By the way, nobody noticed my gaffe earlier, when I called the Hebrew or German or Scottish ch a "glottal fricative." In fact, the sound is made by putting the back of the tongue against the palate, and doesn't come from the glottis at all. Arabic, though, has a couple of glottal consonants. I think that the Hebrew letter kuf, which was transliterated in older texts as "Q", once was used to indicate a glottal stop, as in Arabic, but modern Hebrew does not use this sound and kuf is now pronounced "k". That might be what Brucie was referring to up above.   I also think that the Hebrew letter ayin, now considered to be a silent letter equivalent to the aleph, once had a similar, but softer, sound, again as in modern Arabic.

But I may be wrong on all that as well.

Aloha,
Mark