Talk:Quechua/Pronunciation

Untitled
Quechua doesn't have the same vowels as in Spanish! The best book for Anglophones is "The language of the Inka" from Bruce Mannheim.

Quechua has rather many allophones. The basic Phonemes are:

i = like /I/  more like the y in posh brittish lovely u = like the u in put, but longer. a = like in arab. somewhat like the a in brittisch 'man'

when in contact with uvular sounds, there is change:

i = E like in american english 'get' u = O like in french bonne, or New yorkish: Boss a = A like in father

Linacha, i presume it was you who put in "Ayqey - to escape", i took that out and replaced it with "Ayqena", because i am trying to keep all of the examples as nouns, since they are the most basic part of speech. Do you think that is a good idea or not? The bellman 03:29, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

IPA
all of the IPA symbols are currently uploaded to wikipedia, so when i have the time i will make a copy of them on commons, and then put them into the table. Also, i think that a paragraph or two is required to introduce the concept of phonetics, the IPA, X-SAMPA and to say, that while it may be useful you dont need to know these things for the course. I think quite a bit of that could be copied from the wikipedia articles on Phonetics, the IPA and X-SAMPA. The bellman 05:20, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Consonents
I think we really need to put in some of the information about aspirated and glottalized consonents, possibly starting with what's below. dannya222 00:12, 04 May 2005 (UTC)

These freaking consonents are confusing the hell out of me, due to conflicting sources. My sources are: http://www.zompist.com/quechua.html http://www.omniglot.com/writing/quechua.htm and the lonely planet quechua phrasebook. The bellman 05:20, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * The quechua consonant system has a fairly regular structure and it shouldn't be difficult to grasp if properly explained. I'm reordering the chart and adding the missing consonants to make things clear. I'm also correcting the vowel part: there aren't five basic vowels, just three (as reflected in the orthography devised by linguists), because [e] and [o] are merely allophonic, that is, they are not used to distinguish words, which means if you pronounce [i] and [u] before [q] the word is unchanged, although it won't sound as "natural" to native speakers to pronounce it that way. Including them as "basic vowel sounds" is like saying that in English there are two basic t sounds: the one in "take" (aspirated [t_h]) and the one in "stake" (unaspirated [t]). Of course, there is just one phonemic t in English, regardless of how many phonetic allophones it features. The choice between phonetic [t_h]/[t] in English is determined purely by the phonetic environment and if you pronounce a [t_h] in "stake" or a [t] in "take" the word is unchanged, although it won't sound as "natural" to native speakers, just like the choice between [i]/[e] and between [u]/[o] in Quechua. Note that in Quechua those two types of t sound (aspirated [t_h] and unaspirated [t]) are considered completely different consonants and if you use one instead of the other the word is changed, that is, those two sounds belong to different consonant phonemes in Quechua, unlike in English (viceversa, a word is changed in English if you use [i] instead of [e] or [u] instead of [o], because those sounds belong to different vowel phonemes in English, unlike in Quechua). Uaxuctum 00:12, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

/q/ or /x/?
The current module says that the IPA /q/ / Quechua is pronounced as in the Scottish Loch. The last time I checked, is pronounced /lɒx/, not */lɒq/. Mga 04:23, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


 * It's both right and wrong. In Quechua, the sounds fricative velar [x] and uvular [X] are merely positional allophones of the corresponding plosives (/k/ and /q/). Uaxuctum 20:35, 1 September 2006 (UTC)