What's the problem with 'th' or θ sound?

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Cainntear
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Re: What's the problem with 'th' or θ sound?

Postby Cainntear » Fri Aug 03, 2018 2:56 pm

I think as a general rule, it's highly unlikely to coexist with a dental T sound, because in rapid speech it becomes quite difficult to distinguish between dental T and TH as they are articulated so similarly.

In some languages where TH sounds exist, they're actually a lazy/incomplete pronunciation of T.

Compare the two Ds in Madrid (if speaking with an accent that makes them different). The second D sounds a lot like the TH or "then", but in fact it's just basically attempting a Spanish D but "missing the target", so to speak. Many learners make the mistake of pronouncing it with the tip of their teeth like the English one, but that's further away from the Spanish D than it should be.
Languages who gain TH through incomplete pronunciation tend to lose it through incomplete pronunciation later in their evolution, often to an H sound or a glottal stop. (In fact, in many parts of Scotland, "think" is pronounced "hink", and in some Northern parts "this" and "that" are pronounced "iss" and "at".)
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Re: What's the problem with 'th' or θ sound?

Postby Deinonysus » Fri Aug 03, 2018 4:08 pm

On a related note, why does such a rare sound as the Welsh "ll" sound have such a wide geographical thread, yet completely avoid any major languages?

It's in Icelandic when an "l" falls at the end of words, as in "skál" (cheers) and "jökull" (glacier). A double "l" in Icelandic makes a "tl", so combined with the final "l" it sounds almost like the English "ch".

It's in Nahuatl (Aztec), paired with a t as in Icelandic "jökull", in "ahuacatl" (avocado), "axolotl" (a cute salamander with bright gills), and the name of the language itself.

It's in Zulu and Xhosa, spelled "hl".

And it's in Navajo, it's the letter "ł".

So if we're keeping score, we have the southern tip of Africa, the northern tip of Europe, and the center of North America. These languages could not be further apart geographically, and yet I can't think of a single language with more than 10 million speakers that has this sound.
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Re: What's the problem with 'th' or θ sound?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Fri Aug 03, 2018 6:20 pm

Hashimi wrote:Interesting. I was always wondering how the Latin "fabulari" became "hablar" in modern Spanish. The sound 'f' is similar to θ, they're both voiceless fricative, but one is dental and the other is labiodental.


The f to h transition is universal - the short version is that f becomes h over time. For Latin vs. Spanish specifically:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_o ... h-_to_null

There are examples in language families all over the world (and in the world on Youtube polyglots, I think both StuJay and Glossika have talked about it).
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Re: What's the problem with 'th' or θ sound?

Postby Cainntear » Fri Aug 03, 2018 7:05 pm

Hashimi wrote:Interesting. I was always wondering how the Latin "fabulari" became "hablar" in modern Spanish. The sound 'f' is similar to θ, they're both voiceless fricative, but one is dental and the other is labiodental.

The loss of initial F in Spanish is thought to be due to the influence of Basque -- Basque doesn't do it, so the assumption is that a large number of speakers of Basque or related languages picked up the Romance of the area and influenced it greatly. This is also assumed to be the reason for the change of Spanish initial SP/ST/SC to ESP/EST/ESC -- Basque doesn't allow initial SP/ST/SC either.

Deinonysus wrote:On a related note, why does such a rare sound as the Welsh "ll" sound have such a wide geographical thread, yet completely avoid any major languages?

I don't know about the geographic spread (pure chance, I'd say) but the most likely explanation for why it's missing in major languages is the incorporation of foreigners. The Romance languages formed when non-Latin speakers tried to communicate in Latin. English is a Germanic language picked up by a Celtic majority from a Germanic elite. Russian is spoken over a huge landmass.

Rarer sounds are typically rare because they're not easy, and a language that is learned by a lot of foreigners will be dramatically affected by the new speakers' inability to pronounce some of the major phonemes.

---

Anyway, back to the loss of letters. The process by which T goes to TH goes to H and finally goes to nothing over time is called "diachronic lenition" -- meaning the weakening of consonants across time. Another form of synchronic lenition sees T go to D and then to voiced TH (ie then) and to nothing. Compare Latin "patrem"/"pater"->"padre" (Spanish/Italian) -> père (French)/pai (Portuguese).

There are some pretty consistent observed rules as to how this usually occurs -- near universals.

For example
Latin "pater" is a very conservative form.
In German, the P has lenited to F (Vater).
In English the P has lenited to F and the T has lenited to TH (father).
In Scottish Gaelic, the P has lenited to nothing and the T has lenited to /h/ (athair).
In Scottish Gaelic "grandfather", the T in the father bit has lenited to zero (seanair, from "seann-athair", lit "old-father")

So
P->F->nothing (In some language families F goes to H before nothing, but this doesn't appear to have happened often in Europe.
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Re: What's the problem with 'th' or θ sound?

Postby kulaputra » Fri Aug 03, 2018 7:12 pm

"Why is phoneme X (more/less) common/uncommon (then phoneme Y)" is tricky to answer for most phonemes. The bottom line is that it just is. However, we can theorize. The probable reason is because unlike most fricatives, th sounds are not sibilants, and are thus much quieter and less intense then other fricatives. This makes them much more susceptible to fortition (change to a plosive) or change in place of articulation.

WALS gives the following four sound groups as rare:

1. clicks

2. labial-velar plosives

3. pharyngeals

4. dental or alveolar non-sibilant fricatives

Th sounds fall into the 4th group.

http://wals.info/chapter/19

So would lateral fricatives like the Welsh "ll" sound. This bit from the link above is particularly salient:

The scattered geographical distribution of dental or alveolar non-sibilant fricatives suggests that the processes that give rise to them are ones that are easily triggered spontaneously. However, the comparative rarity of sounds of this class suggests that these sounds may also be easily lost over a period of time. This may be because of their quietness, which makes them among the least perceptually salient of consonants.
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Re: What's the problem with 'th' or θ sound?

Postby renaissancemedici » Sun Aug 05, 2018 11:42 am

Hashimi wrote: I don't know much about Greek.



It's always pronounced in Greek.
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Re: What's the problem with 'th' or θ sound?

Postby FyrsteSumarenINoreg » Sun Aug 05, 2018 1:50 pm

These sounds can be difficult for many people to pronounce when between consonants:

It's the first thing to do
That's the thing
It's the thriving that it's all about


:?

Oftentimes, in Hiberno-English they are replaced with a t or a d respectively.
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Re: What's the problem with 'th' or θ sound?

Postby Jaleel10 » Mon Aug 13, 2018 7:52 am

FyrsteSumarenINoreg wrote:These sounds can be difficult for many people to pronounce when between consonants:



raises hand haha. Funny thing is that many Afrikaans speakers who grew up without English struggle with this sound. Most of us in rural areas get the bulk of our English exposure at ages 15+. So it's something completely foreign to us. I was lucky enough to have a grandparent who spoke English to me since my infancy but I still sometimes still struggle with the sound. I have friends who will out right say one, two, free :lol: Even on the radio you would sometime here people pronouncing the th as an f.

And guess who is learning the Spanish Spoken in Spain haha. For the life of me I can't seem to pronounce words that contains θ and s next to each other - piscina, ascensor, las cerezas. It's something that I drill often when no one is around :? My mouth just can't make the distinction between those sounds quickly enough. There is always a pause.
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Re: What's the problem with 'th' or θ sound?

Postby Saim » Mon Aug 13, 2018 10:51 am

Jaleel10 wrote:And guess who is learning the Spanish Spoken in Spain haha. For the life of me I can't seem to pronounce words that contains θ and s next to each other - piscina, ascensor, las cerezas. It's something that I drill often when no one is around :? My mouth just can't make the distinction between those sounds quickly enough. There is always a pause.


You don't need to pronounce it as [sθ], plenty of natives realise /sθ/ as [θ]:

[pi'θina]
[aθen'soɾ]
[laθe'ɾeθas]
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Re: What's the problem with 'th' or θ sound?

Postby Jaleel10 » Mon Aug 13, 2018 11:37 am

Saim wrote:You don't need to pronounce it as [sθ], plenty of natives realise /sθ/ as [θ]:

[pi'θina]
[aθen'soɾ]
[laθe'ɾeθas]


This is great news, guess I never paid that much attention to it's application in real conversations, I blame Assimil! haha. This definitely makes pronunciation much more easier for me. Thanks.
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