The Language Sounds That Could Exist, But Don't

Written with Gretchen McCulloch and Molly Ruhl. Gretchen's new book, BECAUSE INTERNET, is available now:
(Those are affiliate links that give a commission to me or Gretchen, depending on country!)

REFERENCES:

Harbeck, J. (2009). Presented at the 30th annual Editors’ Association of Canada conference, Toronto, June 6, 2009.

Algeo, J., & Pyles, T. (2004). The origins and development of the English language (5th ed.). Boston, Mass.: Thomson/Wadsworth.

Nicolaidis, Katerina (2005). "Approval of new IPA sound: the labiodental flap". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 35 (2): 261.

(you can find contact details and social links there too)

[TomScottGo]

And that's it for this run of the Language Files! Thanks to co-authors Gretchen McCulloch and Molly Ruhl, and animator Stephen Houston-Moore. And to answer the question that'll get asked ten times in response to this, these videos and comments get scheduled weeks in advance so I don't have to worry about actually being online when they launch.

[boeman]

"A velar trill is judged imposibble."
Me for 5 minutes:

[loopiloop]

The distinct lack of him trying to pronounce non-symbol phonemes displeases me

[ViceroyoftheDiptera]

Of note: "hiccough" is a back-formation, "hiccup" is the older term. The spelling -cough came about from false-association with coughing.

[dilldoe]

Learning English is difficult, it can be taught through tough thorough thought though…

[lonestarr]

I can totally imagine a bunch of scientists sitting together trying to produce all kinds of strange sounds just to decide whether a box of the table should be white or gray.

[carrotmandoespixelmon]

“By all means try it” if you think I haven’t been imitating a dying owl for the past 30 seconds already...

[williamjones]

Took a beginning Spanish class once that had a bunch of teachers in it. They were complaining how hard Spanish was. The teacher asked how do you pronounce "comb", "tomb", "bomb" and why are they pronounced that way. Suddenly Spanish words were making a whole lot of sense.

[shangerdanger]

funny you said "hawaii" which has a written glottal stop in hawaiian "hawai'i"

[BurazSC]

new pick up line: "hey baby, don't mean to brag, but I can velar trill"

[sleepyLili]

I'm a little disappointed that we didn't get to hear how those "possible but never used in any language" consonants sound like.

[shadow]

I’m taking a linguistics class this semester and I couldn’t stop laughing imagining a language based on the sound you make when choking on water

[mdera]

Of all the things you make videos about, linguistics are by far my top favourite. They have really made my ears more sensitive to things in speech I never knew existed, and have made me realise that what I thought was unique to certain languages probably exists in other languages, but just really less emphasized and less central to them.

[susmitislam]

So this is basically a periodic table of human linguistic elements.

[TheManWithTheFlan]

although i thought i could pronounce things thoroughly enough, "hiccough" just ploughed right through me.

[PaulNDeputy]

As retired Speed-Language-Pathologist with a specialty in phonology, I enjoyed your presentation (as well as others you’ve made). They say you can always learn more and I have through you. Thank You.

[jorgee]

I learned IPA symbols and it helped me pronounce any language I want to learn easily. While other people struggle for long times to be able to pronounce a single word, pronunciation is not a big issue for me anymore.

[JohnFoley]

I just tried a glottal lateral, now i need a fresh shirt.

[almostfm]

As someone once said: English is a language where "cough" "rough" and "through" don't rhyme, but "pony" and "bologna" do.

[vitonildo]

One of the most interesting videos I ever watched in Youtube. Thanks, Tom.