Talk:Syllabic consonant

The IPA is wrong
The IPA is wrong. [bɐt̚n̩] for "button" and [bɒɾl̩] for "bottle"? The [ɐ] for short "u" and [ɾ] as the intervocalic allophone of /t/ or /d/ are both American, while [ɒ] for short "o" and [t̚] for syllable-final /t/ are British. I don't know what dialect has both. I would simply correct it rather than ranting about it, but I don't know whether American, British or both are preferred in Wikipedia house style...... 84.70.181.20 11:59, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The Contributing_FAQ says "The official policy is to use British (AKA "Commonwealth") spelling when writing about British (or Commonwealth) topics, and American for topics relating to the United States. General topics can use any one of the variants, but should generally strive to be consistent within an article. See Wikipedia's Manual of Style for a more detailed explanation.". So pick one and go nuts. Pthag 12:06, 23 January 2006 (UTC)


 * GA t is also unreleased in this position, and in any case [ɐ] is allegedly RP too, so that word's not a problem. kwami 12:09, 23 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, the standard is to use [V]. Most British dialects at least tend to use [?] as well. --finlay 144.32.128.112 12:13, 23 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and changed the IPA for the English examples. I used the Oxford English Dictionary transcription. The vowel in button is transcribed as /ʌ/ even though it is phonetically closer to /ɐ/ in RP. This is just a matter of tradition I suppose. The GAm transcriptions would be [bʌʔn] or [bʌt̚n] and [bɑɾl] if anyone thinks they should be added as well. Makerowner 22:15, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Czech sedm [sedm̩]
Is it really so? Czechs pronounced it and taught me to pronounced it as simply [sedum]. 77.40.19.193 (talk) 19:17, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It is. Both [sɛdm̩] or [sɛdum] are considered correct (the same for [osm̩] / [osum]). Since syllabic [m̩] is extremely marginal in the lexicon (including loanwords), its vocalization to [um] is rather common, although other realizations, considered substandard, however, are frequently heard due to assimilation, e.g. [sɛdn̩], [os̩n], mostly (or, for some speakers, exlusively) before /d/, /t/, /n/, especially within compounds such as /osmdesát/ "80" [osm̩dɛsaːt → osn̩dɛsaːt].-- P ětušek 20:11, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Czech?
I guess that "ř" should rather be "r" in the article. Both "r" and "l" can be syllabic in Czech (I'm not sure about "ř"). - 82.139.47.117 11:01, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I can't recall any syllabic ř's, I'll change it to r and l. +Hexagon1 (t) 02:13, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

"Macedonian" is a dead language like ancient Greek or Latin. You probably refer to the slavic language spoken in the region that is politically known as FYROM (note that Macedonia is not internationally recognised as the official name of that state). However the main issue here is that linguistics is one thing and politics is another. Hence, in linguistic terms, you cannot say Macedonian(Lg) and then give slavic words as examples. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.62.6.241 (talk) 14:31, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * You are very much mixing politics with linguistics: Macedonian is very much the language of the region known as "FYROM". I do agree though, that the article is rather stupidly talking about "Serbo-Croat examples in Macedonian". I'll try to fix that. 89.250.190.130 (talk) 15:14, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Liangshan Yi
The data for this language is badly represented and also glosses over a few extra (and very odd) fricatives that can occur syllabically. I am of the persuasion that these segments behave more like vowels (and also LOOK more like them spectrally), but that's neither here nor there and I will do what I can at a later point to edit this section of the article in accord with what's already been written. One thing I can say right off the bat is that the coronal fricative is never trilled, and I have removed that as such, pending some more citations. Vaaarr (talk) 00:45, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

some more explanation in the Definition
the definition is quiet short, actually it s just one sentence. a non scholar of linguistics might even regard the definition confusing when he reads, that a consonant can be a syllable.

-- 79.228.255.178 (talk) 19:52, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Swahili
Swahili has syllabic /m/ and /n/, see Swahili language. I think this needs mentioning. I was surprised not to find it in the article. There might be syllabic consonants in other Bantu languages too (I'm not absolutely sure about that). --Theurgist (talk) 19:29, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Glottal Stops in [nujamɬɬɬɬ]?
I am not quite sure how the word [nujamɬɬɬɬ] would be pronounced, but my closest guess would be something along the lines of [nujamɬʔɬʔɬʔɬ(ʔ)]. Can someone who knows the language better or who knows how repeated consonants work in IPA confirm this? 173.73.88.21 (talk) 19:52, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Weird statement in Germanic languages section
"pronouncing syllabic consonants may be considered a sign of nativity", nativity is defined as the occasion of birth, usually referring to Jesus' birth. This is clearly not what is meant here. The statement is unsourced so I am unsure if it is meant to be "nativeness" (ie being a native of a specific place) or naiveté (ie lacking wisdom or experience). If anyone can clarify, or has a reference that would be much appreciated, otherwise I will probably remove the statement. GiovanniSidwell (talk) 20:05, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I suspect nativeness is meant, in the sense of being a native speaker of one of the Germanic languages. — Eru·tuon 23:51, 19 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree, and I replaced it with a slightly technical term (shibboleth) instead — Blanket P.I. (talk) 20:26, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Voicing
Are syllabic consonants, even fricatives, usually voiced? If so, this may make sense if you think about it.--Myrtonos (talk) 13:24, 22 September 2019 (UTC)


 * I'd agree, but "usually" is a fairly important caveat. For example, under the section on Slavic languages, it's mentioned that some dialects of Serbo-Croatian allow syllabic [t̪] and [tʃ], and a Nuxalk word for seal blubber can be transcribed as [s̩.χ̍.s̩]. I think the fact that syllabic consonants are usually voiced is certainly interesting, but not necessarily important enough to be worth directly mentioning in the article.Etymographer (talk) 22:55, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

English occurrence
The article states that English syllabic obstruents "only" occur in paralinguistic onomatopoeia, but I think many speakers (specifically northern GenAm, but quite possibly elsewhere) tend to pronounce a [v̩] in some contractions, such as could've /kʊ.ɾv̩/ or might've /mʌɪ̯.ɾv̩/. These are probably analyzed with a schwa sound by most authors, but I'd be curious to see if someone has a credible source to either confirm or deny a syllabic /v/ in those cases - I certainly think I pronounce them the way I've transcribed. If there's evidence for any other linguistic occurrence of syllabic obstruents in English, I'd be curious to hear! As of now, I find the general claim with "only" a bit dubious, but not enough to change it unless I come across a source that points this out. Etymographer (talk) 23:57, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Georgian
Syllabic sonorants exist in Georgian too, for example the verb "ფრცქვნა" ("prtskvna" meaning to peel) is pronounced as [pʰɾ̩t͡skʰvnɑ]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:CB10:65:400:3D68:6643:F6B6:3431 (talk) 21:37, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Nuosu vowels
On the Nuosu article itself, it writes there are 4 vowels (though really, it's two syllabic consonants, just times two forms of articulation). There, it gives them as z̩ and v̩ʷ, but here, they are written β̩ and ɹ̝̍. There, two variants of each vowel - loose- and tight-throated - are brought down. Here neither are. What exactly is going on? Furthermore, how did they evolve? Did they start out as vowels and turn into consonants? Or were they always there and the language, just, deleted the vowels? --Shibolet Nehrd (talk) 18:22, 28 June 2022 (UTC)


 * An ephemeral IP editor added a disputed-section tag to the section containing "Nuosu" in November, but it's unclear what part of that section, nor what discussion they meant. What do you think, Shibolet Nehrd, could this be what they meant? ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 13:25, 28 February 2024 (UTC)