13 Non English Consonants: Part I

Learning the sounds and symbols used for non-English sounds is more difficult than learning those we use everyday or even those that are used by speakers of accents of English different from our own. In many cases, we have no internal reference point for the sound and have to build the sound based on how it’s made. Luckily, the landmarks we’ve been using to classify the sounds of English consonants through the workbook, namely voice, place, and manner, will aid us greatly in the process here. As for place and manner, there are a few new concepts to grasp, but because they’re similar to sounds we already know, learners should be able to get the concept quickly and get up to speed. We’ll group all the new sounds by place, and I’ll introduce each new manner along the way, as we encounter them.

Place

Remembering that place is where in the mouth the speech sounds are articulated, we can identify the following places. There are only 3 new place in the pulmonic consonants: retroflex, with the tongue curling back; uvular, with the back of the tongue touching the uvula; and pharyngeal, where the back of the tongue touches the back wall of the mouth, the pharynx. I’ve set the names of the new places that we’re encountering in italics, and all the new symbols are bold.

Bilabial

Bilabial sounds are made with both lips, and we’ll be learning 3 new sounds: a bilabial trill, and 2 bilabial fricatives. We already know what a fricative sounds like from examples like /f, v/. A Trill is made with an articulator held against another articulator, and then air forced between them causes them to vibrate.

Small Cap B: [ʙ]

Phi: [ɸ]

Lowercase Beta: [β]

Labiodental

We’ve already met the Labiodental place with the English consonants [f, v]. Now we’ll learn the labiodental nasal, tap, and approximant. We know what a nasal is from English /m, n, ŋ/, where the soft palate drops to let the voiced sound out the nose while we close off the mouth at the point of articulation; in this case, at the lower lip and upper teeth.

Meng: [ɱ]

V with Right Hook: [ⱱ]

Rounded Lowercase V with Left Hook: [ʋ]

Dental

We’ve already learned the only Dental consonants in the ipa, /θ, ð/, though it’s worth noting that there is a dental diacritic [  ̪ ], which is usually used to indicate that an alveolar consonant is shifted onto the back of the upper front teeth. Many European languages such as French and Italian, for example, articulate what English speakers say as alveolar sounds with dental articulations, so you get [t̪, d̪, n̪, s̪, z̪, l̪]. 

Alveolar

The Alveolar place is the most common used one across the world’s languages. While we’ve already covered the stops /t, d/, nasal /n/, tap /ɾ/, fricative /s, z/, approximant /ɹ/, and lateral approximant /l/, we still have to cover the Alveolar Trill /r/ and the Alveolar Lateral Fricatives. Now we’ve met the trill with the bilabial (lip) trill /ʙ/, the alveolar trill is made with the tip of the tongue and is the most commonly used trill in the world’s languages. The Lateral Fricatives are made with a new manner—with turbulence like fricatives, but simultaneously lateral, sending the airstream/voicing out one or both sides with the tongue tip closing off the centre of the vocal tract at the gum ridge. Often these sound like a combination of /l/ and /s/ or /z/, and in fact are a substitution for /s, z/ for people with the speech difference/disorder known as a “lateral lisp.” The character Sylvester the cat from Looney Toons uses the lateral fricative sounds in this way.

Lowercase R: [r]

Belted L: [ɬ]

L-Ezh: [ɮ]