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December 16, 2005
Words for Sounds, or, "I want a fish named "Retroflex Affricate"
Sometimes, especially after reading articles like this one, I wonder if I missed my calling to be a linguist. I've realized, however, that perhaps the biggest draw to this profession would be the fact that linguists get to use cool words.
First, they get to use fun words to designate the "place of articulation." Essentially, the place of articulation is the point of contact in your mouth or throat tocreate a specific consonant sound. For example, "bilabial" sounds are those you make by first pressing your lips together (like "m" and "p") and labiodental sounds are ones you make by touching your upper teeth to your lower lip (like "v" or "f"). No one -- not even dentists -- get to call parts of your mouth by names that are as fun to say as these. Labial, laminal, apical, dorsal, radical... did you know that such places existed?
Then, as if that wasn't enough of a riot by itself, linguists also get to fling about terms that name the manner of articulation: africate, plosive, flap, trill, nasal, and, my personal favorite, fricative. By combining the place and the manner of articulation, they describe smallest and most commonplace sounds with fabulously multi-syllabled names. Make the [v] sound. There! A voiced labiodental fricative! Woah. Now, make the [d] sound. Yes! A voiced alveolar plosive, in the wild!
Why do linguists get all the fun? I suppose we shouldn't have expected anything different. Sounds are their world, and they have knowledge of the delightful. It's understandable that they would want to keep the very best to themselves, within their discipline of sounds and tongue movements.
I admit, reluctantly, that pursuing a career based solely off an irrational love for its vocabulary would not be a wise move. I wonder, though, what my chances are of naming our next pet "Glottal Fricative."
Words | By elissa | 03:33 PM
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