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Help[Opinions] Re: Thabisa
in reply to a message by Bear
I mean En. speaking countries and other parts of western Europe. (non-Asian)
The gal is South African, I believe. Her surname is very African too. Don't know much else. Thought it sounded nice.
The gal is South African, I believe. Her surname is very African too. Don't know much else. Thought it sounded nice.
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Lovely! Yes, that's puts it into context. It makes me think of Thandiwe, which I like. Is Thabisa pronounced with a "t" or "th" sound at the beginning? Just curious.
This message was edited 8/24/2010, 10:55 AM
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The English th (as in this thistle) and ph (as in phonetics) don't happen in South African indigenous languages.
We think of /t/ and /p/ as being already unvoiced, with their voiced versions being /d/ and /b/, but for Sotho phonetics you need to hear three versions of each: /d/ and then /t/ and then even lighter than that, a devoiced unvoiced /t/. So you pretty well whisper the /t/ sound or follow it with a tiny, unobtrusive /h/. Same with /b/, /p/ and /ph/: I can't do it in this program, but if you can imagine a tiny superscript h following the t or the p, that would be technically correct.
And, to really scare you both: you may recall that back in the bad old days, the apartheid government invented 'self-governing' regions called homelands with majority black populations. Lots of them. And each one was based on the tribal territory of a particular tribal and language group. OK so far? Right! And each one had a name. KwaZulu meant 'Zulu people collectively', for instance. And the longest and hardest to spell of the lot was Bophuthatswana, 'Place of the Tswana people'. As you can tell, the /ph/ and the /th/ are those /p/ and /t/ with the superscript h ... anyway, it was a bizarre and insane system and the world is a better place without it - but it used to be rather fun hearing foreigners, especially ones from the UK, practically blowing their front teeth out in an attempt to say ph and th the English way ...
We think of /t/ and /p/ as being already unvoiced, with their voiced versions being /d/ and /b/, but for Sotho phonetics you need to hear three versions of each: /d/ and then /t/ and then even lighter than that, a devoiced unvoiced /t/. So you pretty well whisper the /t/ sound or follow it with a tiny, unobtrusive /h/. Same with /b/, /p/ and /ph/: I can't do it in this program, but if you can imagine a tiny superscript h following the t or the p, that would be technically correct.
And, to really scare you both: you may recall that back in the bad old days, the apartheid government invented 'self-governing' regions called homelands with majority black populations. Lots of them. And each one was based on the tribal territory of a particular tribal and language group. OK so far? Right! And each one had a name. KwaZulu meant 'Zulu people collectively', for instance. And the longest and hardest to spell of the lot was Bophuthatswana, 'Place of the Tswana people'. As you can tell, the /ph/ and the /th/ are those /p/ and /t/ with the superscript h ... anyway, it was a bizarre and insane system and the world is a better place without it - but it used to be rather fun hearing foreigners, especially ones from the UK, practically blowing their front teeth out in an attempt to say ph and th the English way ...
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Thanks for the explanation. Fortunately for me, I'm a linguist and can make at least some sense of that.
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I think it's th, but I'll find out in Oct. when I see her in person... if not sooner.
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