Re: OT: "Tracheal" consonants: a curiosity?

Paul Roser wrote:

>On Wed, 1 Jun 2005 20:53:51 -0400, # 1 <salut_vous_autre@...>
>wrote:
> >So two questions: What languages or languages families use
> >this sound? And do the people who use this sound in everyday
> >speach have a different form of epiglottis or throat?
> >
> >- Max
>
>
>First, there is nothing especially different in the shape of the
>epiglottis in the speakers of those languages which use it as
>part of their language, as far as I know (though one professor who
>worked with Khoisan speakers reported that muscles in his throat
>became more developed/enlarged, apparently from using these speech
>sounds).
>
Yeah that's what I mean, using such sound modifies the throat... (a genetic
particularity inherited from succecive generations of epiglottis users?
Anyway ,that's not really important...)

>As to which languages use epiglottals - they have been reported to
>occur in Arabic, Salishan languages, Nootka, Somali, some Caucasian
>languages, Dahalo (East Africa), Amis (Taiwan) - in fact many
>instances previously reported as pharyngeals may in fact be realized
>at least allophonically as epiglottals.
>
Are there oppositions between pharyngal and epiglottal consonants?

Or pharyngal, glottal, and epiglottal consonants?

>Epiglottalized vowels (as opposed to true epiglottal segments) have
>also been reported in Ju|hoansi & !Xoo (both Khoesan) as well as
>in Bai (Tibeto-Burman), and probably others that I can't recall off
>the top of my head.
>
Isn't an epiglottalized vowels the same as a creaky voiced vowel? if not
does it sound similar and is there a X-Sampa symbol?

>
>-Bfowol
- Max