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1

Is the Taxon of Altaic Languages Natural or Artificial?

100%

Tambovtsev Y.

Lingua Posnaniensis

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2009

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vol. 51

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issue 1

133-154

EN

The article considers if the taxon of Altaic languages natural enough to call it a good classification. The more compact a taxon, the more natural it is. The article deals with the peculiarities of functioning of labial consonants in the languages of the Altaic language unity and the peculiarities of functioning of labial consonants in subgroups, groups, families and other language taxa of world languages. The analysis is made with the help of such statistical methods as the coefficient of variance, the confidence interval, Chi-square and t-test. The linguistic conclusions on the similarity of functioning of labial consonants are made on the basis of the statistical criteria. It is possible to establish the typological distances between some language taxa (Turkic, Finno-Ugric, Tungus-Manchurian, Slavonic, etc.) on the values of the t-test.

2

Euphony in World Languages

100%

Tambovtsev Y.

Lingua Posnaniensis

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2010

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vol. 52

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issue 1

99-111

EN

There are many languages in the world but every language has its own sound picture. By the sound picture of a language we mean the distribution of its speech sounds in the speech sound chain. It is very interesting to find the languages which are melodical or euphonic and which are not. Melodicity or euphony is the total of the vowels and sonorant consonants in the speech sound chain of a language. It is also possible to call this total the vocalo-sonorant quotient. Thus, the degree of melodicity is the value of this quotient.Vowels and sonorant consonants constitute the vocalo-sonorant structure of the sound picture of any language. We take into consideration the basic features of sound classes and groups. The basic features consist of the frequency of occurrence of vowels and sonorant consonants in the speech chain. These basic features may be found in any world language. This is why, melodicity is one more language universal. Analysing the value of melodicity, one can construct the typology of distribution of language taxa according to this universal characteristic.Austronesian languages have a great concentration of vowels in the speech sound chain (e.g. maximum - 65.24% in Hawaiian and 69.75% in Samoan).Vocalo-sonorant quotient turned out to be bigger in the following language taxa: Sino-Tibetan family (Burmese - 75.67%), Bantu (Swahili - 76.29%), Afro-Asian family (Neo-Aramaic - 81.47%), Austronesian family (Hawaiian - 83.29%), languages of Australian aboriginals - Nunggubuyu - 85.14%). It means that 85.14% of the Nunggubuyu speech sound chain consists of vowels and sonorant consonants.On the other hand, some of the world languages have the minimum of the concentration of vowels. So, in the Itelmen language (Paleo-Asiatic family) vowels comprise only 32.61%.Let us consider the minimum of the vocalo-sonorant quotient. Thus, in the Adygian language (Caucasian family) this quotient reaches only 54.07%.It should be mentioned that on the average the Caucasian language family has a rather low vocalo-sonorant quotient - 61.66%. The ordered series of the average of the vocalo-sonorant quotient in different language taxa is the following: Baltic group of Indo-European family - 62.76%; Iranian group of the Indo-European family - 63.95%); Slavonic group - 64.64%; Germanic - 64.78%; Samoyedic family - 65.16%; Finno-Ugric family - 65.57%; Mongolic family - 66.06%; Balkan language unity - 66.18%; Indic group of the Indo-European family - 66.77%; Turkic family - 66.99%; Paleo-Asiatic family - 67.58%; Sino-Tebetan family - 67.63%; Roman group of I-E family - 68.57%; Afro-Asiatic family - 68.96%; Manchu-Tungusic family - 69.54%; Austronesian family - 73.16%; Bantu - 73.40%; Languages of Australian aboriginals - 80.51%.Melodicity, i.e. the total of vowels and sonorant consonants, may be considered a language universal.

3

Typological Distance Between Korean And The Other Languages Of Asia

100%

Tambovtsev Y.

Lingua Posnaniensis

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2008

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vol. 50

177-186

EN

The present typological study of the Korean language is based on the frequency of occurrence of consonants in comparison to sound chains of various languages of Asia. The article deals with the typological distances between Korean and some languages of Asia from the point of view of the frequency of occurrence of consonants in the speech sound chain, which creates the sound picture of any language. Actually, the chosen 8 phonetic features (labial, front. palatal, velar, sonorant, occlusive, fricative and voiced) are the most informative from the phonetic point of view, since they cover all the three main classifications of consonants: 1) the classification from the point of view of the work of the active organ of speech production, which is often called the place of articulation; 2) the classification by the manner of articulation; 3) the classification by the work of vocal cords. It was discovered that some languages are closer to Japanese and some to Korean. Though Japanese and Korean are considered isolated languages, Turkic languages are closer to Korean than the other languages. In fact, such Turkic languages as Tatar-Baraba (5.20), Turkish (5.64), Ujgur (5.70), Tatar-Chulym (6.24), Dolgan (7.31), Tatar-Crimean (7.71), Tatar-Kazan (7.53), Jakutian (7.58) are closer to Korean than Japanese (7.88). Therefore one can come to the conclusion, that those linguists who place Korean in to the Altaic language unity are quite correct.

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Is the Taxon of Altaic Languages Natural or Artificial?

Euphony in World Languages

Typological Distance Between Korean And The Other Languages Of Asia