ktravula – a travelogue!

Phonetics for Dummies

Students of a compulsory phonetics class have often asked me what the best strategy is to get through the course. I have often always responded with the same answer: open-mindedness, and focus. Phonetics happens to be one of the most interesting subjects in linguistics, and an important base for anyone interested in moving forward in the field.

So what is special about phonetics? The answer is, everything. All the sound systems of the world are represented on the IPA phonetic chart, and even though one may not be able to pronounce all of them, it is important to realize that they are all legitimate sounds. And more, one can actually pronounce any one of them using the simple knowledge of their place and manner of articulation. Many of the sounds are not available in English – which explains the dilemma of most English-speaking and American students. The easiest way out is for them to realize from the start that they shouldn’t hope to be able to pronounce all the sounds, although it matters that they know how they are pronounced and what makes each of them unique.

[f] and [v] are different only in voicing. They are pronounced in the same place and with the same manner of articulation. It’s the same with [k]/[g], and [t]/[d], [s]/[z] etc. This makes it easy to distinguish between the fricatives at the end of “breath” and “breathe”. In text, they look alike, in sound, they sound different. A little step further into phonology, and we begin to ask what conditions exist that make it likely that a voiceless consonant becomes (or is realized as) a voiced one.

But for this phonetic beginning, let us just adjust to the fact that sounds are fascinating, and that our vocal tracts have evolved over the years to be able to make an almost infinite type of sounds. Our job in the phonetics class is to group those sounds according to stipulated categorization methods.

Picture of cake by Jenna Tucker

On the Origin Of Names (IV)

I came upon an interesting realization today that the Yoruba cultural system has solved for the world long before now, one of the most pressing issues of predestination. I should preface this, perhaps, with a disclosure that my undergraduate university project was called The Multimedia Dictionary of Yoruba Names. I have been fascinated with the concept of naming and the thinking processes that go into them since a very long time. According to the Yoruba belief system, a child is named usually with a view in his/her potentials as well as the conditions surrounding his birth. Read more here.

The Western world, however, is a different case entirely, depending on a totally arbitrary system of child-naming. Not only is there no special day when the name of the child is declared to the world, it is perfectly acceptable to call someone Lemon or Bush, or Focker, Iron or Stone. I mean, what were the parents thinking? A few months ago, Congressman Anthony Weiner became a news item not just for what he did wrong, but for how his name had not served as a warning to anyone around him since he was a kid. A last comment on strange associations will go to the strangeness of calling people who practise same sex associations fruits. I’ve never understood why this is the case, but when CNN’s first openly gay man happens to bear the name of a real fruit, it makes one take a second look at serendipity. (No slight intended here, seriously).

I do not want to cheapen this subject so I’ll stop here. But let’s hear what George Carlin has to say: “Soft names make soft people. I’ll bet you anything, that ten times out of ten, (guys named) Nicky, Vinnie, and Tony would beat the shit out of Todd, Kyle, and Tucker.” I return to Yoruba roots where everything has already been patiently explained. Ile la n wo k’a to so omo loruko. A name is not just a name. A rose called by any other name might not always smell as sweet, so if you are naming one, be careful not to name it after a killer bee or a poisonous cantaloupe.

(The three previous precursors to this post are also worth checking out. Check the “related post” section down below.)

Three Worrying Things

1. According to some reports, about 700 people were arrested yesterday for their role in the Occupy Wall Street protests. Many have also been pepper-sprayed by the NY police or attacked just for participating in the protests that has now spread to many states and has received endorsement from many activists.

2. An American-born terrorist (so-called because of his not yet disclosed links to the Fort Hood shootings and the Underwear Bomber of 1999) has been assassinated in Yemen through a direct order from the current Administration. Repeat: He is an American, the first in recent memory that has been denied the due process of law before any allegations against him has been proven. Most of what has been proven about this man is that he engaged in hate rhetoric.

3. Salman Rushdie, a writer known for his brilliant prose as well as for the number of years he spent underground being protected from a draconian death sentence placed on him by an Islamic (police) state has just gone on television to defend the extrajudicial killing of the man referenced in #2. On Bill Maher’s show last Friday, he opined that when someone has been accused of treason, they lose a certain percentage of their rights (and can therefore be killed without being brought to trial).

Worrying times!

The Blood Bank: Two Years After…

I’m happy to inform you that two years after I reported a discriminatory practice in blood donation by the Red Cross on our campus, the situation has been remedied, at least on campus. I walked up there with a friend today, as I’ve done for the last two years, to check their list of exemptions. Nothing in there mentions “Nigeria”, or “sexual contact” as it did the last time, although – now more understandably – people who have travelled to “malaria-prone” zones of the world are required to wait for about three years before donating blood. The science and the common sense are now finally catching up with the other.

Update: On the other hand, the Red Cross website still has the following under its eligibility criteria, under the topic of HIV:

You are at risk for getting infected if you: … were born in, or lived in, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea,Gabon, Niger, or Nigeria, since 1977… had sex with anyone who, since 1977, was born in or lived in any of these countries… (http://www.redcrossblood.org/donating-blood/eligibility-requirements/eligibility-criteria-alphabetical-listing).

Could someone please inform the Red Cross that you are at risk of getting HIV if you live anywhere on the surface of the earth today and you do things that put you at risk?

With Love from Toto

With Love from my Toto*

Did they not chook** me with their cacti

and fill me with bilious waste – those

whose scrota should be jaundiced with

stings from wayward bees?

Did they not claw me with callous talons

and grip my vexing veins – those

whose hands will remain guests

to rheumatoid rust?

Did they not mock my wailings

and cause my teeth to gnash – those

whose nights should witness

harmonies of terrors and bitterness?

Did they not defile my thighs

and maul my breasts – those

whose paths will forever

quake with anguish?

Did they not tear me apart

and watch my navel suffocate – those

who should be bobittised with blunt scalpels?

Some pricks should be snacks for hungry hyenas.

poem by Chris Ogunlowo ***

_____________________

* Nigerian Pidgin for vagina.

* * The equivalent of fuck in Nigerian Pidgin English, usually used to exaggerate coital thrust.

*** Written in response to the recent infamous rape case that went viral in Nigeria last week. Chris is a Nigerian blogger and copywriter.

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