Comments on: Give a little whistle http://camba.ucsd.edu/blog/phonoloblog/2005/06/22/give-a-little-whistle/ all things phonology | camba.ucsd.edu/phonoloblog Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:15:56 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: Nathan Sanders http://camba.ucsd.edu/blog/phonoloblog/2005/06/22/give-a-little-whistle/#comment-1125 Nathan Sanders Thu, 23 Jun 2005 19:56:02 +0000 http://camba.ucsd.edu/phonoloblog/?p=187#comment-1125 Your Turkish is certainly better than mine, I'm sure! My knowledge is limited to the standard phonology problem set, plus my memory of informal chats with a native speaker a decade ago on her knowledge of <i>kuşdılı</i> (which she probably hadn't used in about a decade!). A bit of digging reveals that you are correct, that <i>dil</i> (with dotted <i>i</i>) is the word for 'language', but my informant was very precise about <i>kuşdılı</i> having dotless <i>ı</i>s (I distinctly remember her correcting my spelling when I wrote it down). Compound words in Turkish don't usually (ever?) undergo vowel harmony, which would explain why Kuşdili the city would have dotted <i>i</i>s (and why every Google hit I've looked at has them, too). Perhaps the ludling's name underwent backness vowel harmony (but not roundness harmony...) for some reason? A way of marking the ludling as 'weird', overapplication of backness harmony, or reanalysis of the morpheme structure? Or I could be completely misremembering the directionality of my informant's correction of my spelling. I swear she told me to <i>remove</i> the dots... Your Turkish is certainly better than mine, I’m sure! My knowledge is limited to the standard phonology problem set, plus my memory of informal chats with a native speaker a decade ago on her knowledge of kuşdılı (which she probably hadn’t used in about a decade!).

A bit of digging reveals that you are correct, that dil (with dotted i) is the word for ‘language’, but my informant was very precise about kuşdılı having dotless ıs (I distinctly remember her correcting my spelling when I wrote it down). Compound words in Turkish don’t usually (ever?) undergo vowel harmony, which would explain why Kuşdili the city would have dotted is (and why every Google hit I’ve looked at has them, too).

Perhaps the ludling’s name underwent backness vowel harmony (but not roundness harmony…) for some reason? A way of marking the ludling as ‘weird’, overapplication of backness harmony, or reanalysis of the morpheme structure?

Or I could be completely misremembering the directionality of my informant’s correction of my spelling. I swear she told me to remove the dots…

]]> By: Eric Bakovic http://camba.ucsd.edu/blog/phonoloblog/2005/06/22/give-a-little-whistle/#comment-1123 Eric Bakovic Thu, 23 Jun 2005 15:38:09 +0000 http://camba.ucsd.edu/phonoloblog/?p=187#comment-1123 Thanks, Nathan. I was sure <i>dıl</i> was a dotted <i>i</i>, but my Turkish is (clearly) a little rusty. Incidentally, when I lived in Istanbul (1982-1984, when I was 11-13), I played a language game like this with my Turkish friends, though I don't recall what we called it. It involved adding [δVgV] after every syllable, such that <i>kedi</i> came out <i>ke<b>δege</b>di<b>δigi</b></i>. What's odd about this -- though I had no idea at the time -- is that [δ] is not a Turkish consonant (at least, not typically). But then I heard the same language game played in English in the (very disturbing) movie <a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0328538/" rel="nofollow"><i>Thirteen</i></a>, and now I wonder whether we all picked it up somewhere else. My Turkish friends didn't have any other English-speaking friends, so I may have brought it home from school ... I just don't remember. Thanks, Nathan. I was sure dıl was a dotted i, but my Turkish is (clearly) a little rusty. Incidentally, when I lived in Istanbul (1982-1984, when I was 11-13), I played a language game like this with my Turkish friends, though I don’t recall what we called it. It involved adding [δVgV] after every syllable, such that kedi came out keδegediδigi. What’s odd about this — though I had no idea at the time — is that [δ] is not a Turkish consonant (at least, not typically). But then I heard the same language game played in English in the (very disturbing) movie Thirteen, and now I wonder whether we all picked it up somewhere else. My Turkish friends didn’t have any other English-speaking friends, so I may have brought it home from school … I just don’t remember.

]]> By: Nathan Sanders http://camba.ucsd.edu/blog/phonoloblog/2005/06/22/give-a-little-whistle/#comment-1124 Nathan Sanders Thu, 23 Jun 2005 02:37:23 +0000 http://camba.ucsd.edu/phonoloblog/?p=187#comment-1124 Not really related to the primary content of your post, but as I understand it, <i>kuşdılı</i> (with dotless <i>ı</i>s) means 'bird language' (which suggests that <i>kuş</i> means 'bird') and is a type of ludling (language game) in which a consonant (often <i>f</i>, but it varies by 'dialect' of <i>kuşdılı</i>) is inserted for every syllable, along with a copy of the syllable's nucleus. Thus, <i>kedi</i> 'cat' would become <i>ke<b>fe</b>di<b>fi</b></i>. Not really related to the primary content of your post, but as I understand it, kuşdılı (with dotless ıs) means ‘bird language’ (which suggests that kuş means ‘bird’) and is a type of ludling (language game) in which a consonant (often f, but it varies by ‘dialect’ of kuşdılı) is inserted for every syllable, along with a copy of the syllable’s nucleus. Thus, kedi ‘cat’ would become kefedifi.

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