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Thread: The Sound of Old Japanese Language

  1. #1
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    Default The Sound of Old Japanese Language

    It’s quite easy to pronounce for a Turk and this is so weird since I don’t find the pronunciation of today’s Japanese easy that much. What about IE speakers?

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    Languages that have a lot of "ö" sounds always sound funny.

    Front rounded vowels are actually a pretty rare feature, especially outside Eurasia (https://wals.info/feature/11A#2/22.6/152.9):



    In WALS, only 23 out of 562 languages with data about the presence of front rounded vowels are listed as having both high and mid front rounded vowels. Many are Uralic (Finnish, Hungarian, Mari, Selkup) or Turkic (Turkish, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Chuvash, Kirghiz, Tuvan, Yakut). However WALS is missing data about languages like Estonian and Tatar, both of which have both high and mid front unrounded vowels.

    Front rounded vowels in IPA:

    /y/ - a close front rounded vowel ("y" in Finnish orthography, "ü" in Turkish and Estonian orthography)
    /ʏ/ - a near-close front rounded vowel
    /ø/ - a close-mid front rounded vowel ("ö" in Finnish and Estonian orthography)
    /ø̞/ - a mid front rounded vowel
    /œ/ - an open-mid front rounded vowel ("ö" in Turkish orthography)
    /ɶ/ - an open front rounded vowel

    Wikipedia says this about Old Japanese: "The vowel u was a close back rounded vowel /u/, unlike the unrounded /ɯ/ of Modern Standard Japanese.[40]" However the speaker in the video pronounces "u" more like /ɯ/ (which is denoted by the dotless letter "i" in Turkish orthography).

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    Inactive Account Chris596's Avatar
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    I don't find it particularly hard to pronounce, yes it sounds easier than modern Japanese. There are lots of rounded vowels just like in Hungarian for example. I just wish I understood the words, so it would be much easier to say them, without reading the text.

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    Hardest & more unitelligible than modern japanese.

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    Bender1999
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    It sounds really like the modern Japanese.

    Languages that have a lot of "ö" sounds always sound funny.

    Front rounded vowels are actually a pretty rare feature, especially outside Eurasia (https://wals.info/feature/11A#2/22.6/152.9):



    In WALS, only 23 out of 562 languages with data about the presence of front rounded vowels are listed as having both high and mid front rounded vowels. Many are Uralic (Finnish, Hungarian, Mari, Selkup) or Turkic (Turkish, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Chuvash, Kirghiz, Tuvan, Yakut). However WALS is missing data about languages like Estonian and Tatar, both of which have both high and mid front unrounded vowels.

    Front rounded vowels in IPA:

    /y/ - a close front rounded vowel ("y" in Finnish orthography, "ü" in Turkish and Estonian orthography)
    /ʏ/ - a near-close front rounded vowel
    /ø/ - a close-mid front rounded vowel ("ö" in Finnish and Estonian orthography)
    /ø̞/ - a mid front rounded vowel
    /œ/ - an open-mid front rounded vowel ("ö" in Turkish orthography)
    /ɶ/ - an open front rounded vowel

    Wikipedia says this about Old Japanese: "The vowel u was a close back rounded vowel /u/, unlike the unrounded /ɯ/ of Modern Standard Japanese.[40]" However the speaker in the video pronounces "u" more like /ɯ/ (which is denoted by the dotless letter "i" in Turkish orthography).
    I really don’t recognize any relation to turkic languages. The relation between finoo ugric and turkic languages is more plausible than turkic to japanese.

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    Voiced consonants were prenasalized in Old Japanese (/ⁿd, ᵑɡ, ᵐb, ⁿz/). However both of the speakers in the OP's video pronounce voiced consonants without prenasalization.

    Actual Old Japanese probably sounded completely different. Some Japanese dialects like this (津軽弁, Tsugaru dialect) are even harder to understand than the OP's video:


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