Talk:Inuit phonology

Is capital K used in Nunatsiavummiutut the same or related to Kra (letter) used in the Kalaallisut language? Andreas 02:34, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Two questions:

Is really spelled  (L with ~ through it) (which is the IPA symbol for "velarized or pharyngeal" [l])? Are you sure they don't use the originally Polish letter Łł (L with / through it) which e. g. Navajo uses for its own ?

Where /q/ becomes a fricative, does it really become, or does it stay uvular and becomes ?

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 1:43 CEST | 2006/5/7

Qawiaraq or Qawariaq?
Someone needs to find out if the dialect is called Qawiaraq, or Qawariaq, and standardize the spelling throughout the article. Qawiaraq language exists on Wikipedia, but I don't know if that itself is misspelled. 24.159.255.29 19:08, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Dorais(1990) spells it as Qawiaraq... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.224.77.180 (talk) 19:55, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Needs cleaning up
Here are some things I found to be worded inaccurately or confusingly. I've reworded a few things, but I'm not sure how to rewrite the rest, since I haven't done the research to know exactly what's being said.


 * Retroflexes have disappeared in all the Canadian and Greenlandic dialects, except for the phoneme // in Natsilingmiutut, which derives from a former retroflex.

I'm not sure that sentence needs to be kept in the introduction; I think it makes sense to move it to the section "Retroflex consonants in western dialects" (what's there already tells part of the story, but needs to be cleaned up... see below). Also, it seems a little strange to say that the sound "disappeared" except for in Natsilingmiutut, where it became palatal. First, the sound in Natsilingmiutut shouldn't count as a retroflex since, notwithstanding its origin, it is not retroflex. Also, when you say it "disappeared," do you mean the sound actually become a phonological zero in other dialects? Or did it just undergo a change to another sound, as it did in Natsilingmiutut? (The gist of these questions is: what makes the Natsilingmiutut development any different from the development in other dialects?)

Section "Retroflex consonants in western dialects":


 * Natsilingmiutut retains as a phoneme the plosive, and often retroflex, palatal consonant.

This doesn't make sense. It can't be both palatal and retroflex, can it? Do you mean that sometimes it is palatal and other times retroflex?


 * In Inupiatun, the of Natsilingmiutut and the /j/ in some central Inuktitut words has become  (written r).

Do you really mean that has become, or merely that they correspond (and both derive from a common ancestral sound)? (The first option would only make sense if Inupiatun were descended from Natsilingmiutut, which doesn't seem to be true).


 * In addition to the voiced retroflex fricative (written "r"), Inupiatun also has a voiceless retroflex fricative  written as "sr".  This additional manner of articulation is largely distinctive to Inupiatun – it is absent from the more easterly dialects, except for the  of Natsilingmiutut.

A voiceless retroflex fricative has the same manner of articulation as a voiced retroflex fricative; it is not an "additional manner of articulation." Further, I don't understand how the of Natsilingmiutut relates here at all; it isn't even voiceless, let alone retroflex. 24.159.255.29 19:48, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Nasal endings
The section on nasalised endings makes it sound as if some western dialects turn a final -t into an -n.

Is it not the other way around? That is, the -n is the ancestral form and the eastern dialects have turned this into -t?

I seem to recall reading something along the lines that in older (expected to be conservative) speakers of eastern dialects, final -t marking "you (sg.)" object and final -t marking the plural behave differently, one turning into -n and the other not (though I don't remember which way around). This would indicate that the -t --> -n is not a general prosodic thing guided merely by sound, but would be consistent with retaining an original -n in some cases -- if the "you (sg.)" object had -n originally and the plural had -t (or the other way around, whichever it was). -- pne (talk) 11:08, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

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