Ejectives

Started by HawkPidgeon, December 21, 2009, 03:27:00 AM

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Toruk Makto

ejectives are awesome

Kamean

Tì'efumi oeyä pxorpam sìltsan lu nitxan! ;D But it's only my opinion, because I love this sounds and my russian tongue can it easily pronounse . :D
Tse'a ngal ke'ut a krr fra'uti kame.


Yawne Zize’ite

I'm still working on ejectives, but what I believe got me over the hump last night from "can't do ejectives" to "sounds like an ejective...affricate...most of the time" was a stray observation I read that ejectives aren't a consonant spoken through holding a glottal stop - that produces a muddy, faint sound - but coarticulated, in other words, a consonant and a glottal stop released at the same time. It's the double release that gives an ejective that "popping" or "clicking" sound. If Frommer's method doesn't work for you, try pronouncing k and ' together so quickly they merge and you'll get what I got, which sure sounds like those ejectives I hear on YouTube.

Do try kx first. It's true that the further back in the mouth the sound is, the easier it is to make an ejective version, so kx is the easiest in Na'vi. An added bonus is that clicks are made by a mechanism that, I believe, makes a click at the k-position impossible, so you don't have to worry about getting a click instead. If you can make a q (as in Arabic qalam, qibla) effortlessly, try to make "qx"; it's easier than kx.

rodrygo

ma Yawne Zize'ite!


Do you think kx is similar to arabic  (qaaf) ق ?

Yawne Zize’ite

No, "kx" [k'] isn't the same as ق [q]. It probably was "kx" [k'] or "qx" [q'] in Proto-Semitic, but modern Arabic lacks ejectives. The cognate sound in Ethiopic is indeed "kx".

Qaaf sounds like a deeper k to me, but kx has a distinct "click" or "pop" you can hear in a good recording. The "pop" comes from saying hamza at the same time as the k (or q, or t, or p). The further back in the mouth the base consonant is, the more distinctive and easier the sound, so px is relatively rare and qx is more common than expected. 

tompakato

I was browsing the vocabulary and noticed a minimal pair:
ep'ang (complex)
epxang (stone jar used to hold small toxic arachnid)
How should I pronounce "ep'ang" so that it's not "epx'ang"? And why is there a word for "stone jar used to hold small toxic arachnid"?

Two double ejectives: atxkxe aekxtxu.

Tìtstewan

#86
ep'ang: the ' you do a short break
epxang: well, I don't know how I can explain it in english...but I think this video maybe helps:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQMbCYjUTmk

Quote from: tompakato on April 05, 2013, 12:32:53 AM
And why is there a word for "stone jar used to hold small toxic arachnid"?
epxang = stone jar Description: used to hold small toxic arachnid

Quote from: tompakato on April 05, 2013, 12:32:53 AM
Two double ejectives: atxkxe aekxtxu.
atxkxe - at' k' e
aekxtxu - ek' t' u
What you want to know about the double ejective? :)

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