This is not a comprehensive list but just a few snippets from languages that have a few consonants that sound pretty much the same to me. I wanted to ask how I can learn to hear the difference between them. Also, I am interested to know if either (a) it is just an "accent thing", meaning "d
" might be pronounced d
after some sounds, while pronounced ɖ
after others, d̪
after still others, and d̪ʱ
after others, but they all mean "d
", or (b) these are actually conceptualized as totally distinct sounds.
The examples are:
- Nuxalk:
pʰ ⟨p⟩
,tʰ ⟨t⟩
,t͡sʰ ⟨c⟩
,cʰ ⟨k⟩
,kʷʰ ⟨kʷ⟩
,qʰ ⟨q⟩
,qʷʰ ⟨qʷ⟩
,qʼʷ ⟨q̓ʷ⟩
- Proto Circassian has a lot, but won't go into that.
- Preaspiration
ʰt
still figuring out. - Uyghur:
k vs. q
. - Tsez:
k vs. kʼ
. - Odia:
t̪ ʈ t̪ʰ ʈʰ
,d̪ ɖ d̪ʱ
. - Naxi:
/k/ vs. /kʰ/ k
,/cʰ/ vs. /tʂʰ/ ch
- Hindustani:
(ʂ)
vs.ʃ
, and(ʐ)
vs.(ʒ)
vs.(ɣ)
.
The main ones are:
/k/
vs./kʰ/ k
k
vs.kʼ
k
vs.q
/cʰ/
vs./tʂʰ/ ch
kʷʰ ⟨kʷ⟩
vs.qʷʰ ⟨qʷ⟩
(ʂ)
vs.ʃ
(ʐ)
vs.(ʒ)
vs.(ɣ)
I understand the technical pronunciation difference between k
and q
, but I can't hear a difference, especially if two words were said that mean totally different things but sound roughly the same, like kar
vs. qar
, I couldn't tell the difference. Wondering if you need to be able to distinguish the two sounds in order to understand the language, or it's more of a context/accent thing (way of pronouncing the "k" sound in a certain context).
Same goes for kʷʰ ⟨kʷ⟩
vs. qʷʰ ⟨qʷ⟩
, just slightly different variants.
In Naxi they have /cʰ/
vs. /tʂʰ/ ch
, which both sound the same to me as well. Wondering the same for this, if it's required to distinguish between these two sounds.
In Hindustani they have (ʂ)
vs. ʃ
, and (ʐ)
vs. (ʒ)
vs. (ɣ)
. I can kind of tell the difference between /ʂ/
and /ʃ/
, where ʂ
is a little deeper sounding. But all of these sound similar to each other roughly.
So basically just wondering if you need to be able to clearly distinguish and pronounce these sound pairs/sets in order to speak and understand the language properly, or really there is just one underlying sound, and multiple ways of producing it (like (ʂ)
vs. ʃ
). And if it needs to be understood at a deeper level, wondering if you have suggestions on how to do it.