Talk:Yaqui language

Phonology

The phonology section of the article does not make sense to me. The vowels, in particular, are inconsistant. The article says they are pronounced like Spanish vowels (which is rather vague) and then proceeds to give them IPA symbols that approximate fairly well with Spanish, but gives an idiomatic English 'sounds like' that gives different sounds. I would imagine that the English sound alikes are in error. However, it may be that northern varieties have adopted anglicised vowel sounds. The section on consonants is a lot better, but I'm sure could be clearer. — Gareth Hughes 16:10, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The (American) English sound alikes are "similar" to "standard" Spanish values (for those who are not familiar with Spanish vowel values), and are certainly close enough to the true Yaqui pronunciation to be understood. However, the "Spanish values" are more accurate. (With the caveat, of course, that some Spanish vowel values in northern Mexico vary considerably from other Spanish-speaking areas. For example, the Sonoran Spanish "e" is quite close to IPA /æ/. The chart reference is to "standard" Spanish.) Does this clarify?

And no, the northern and southern varieties of Yaqui are quite similar in sounding of vowels, with anglicization of pronunciation being a fairly minimal force inasmuch as the English "correction" taught in school is based on an assumption of Spanish rather than Yaqui mispronunciation.

First off, I would like to say this is a very informative page and is rather accurate as far as I read. I have a couple of edits that I would like to propose that would make this Yaqui Language page even better and easier for a layperson with limited linguistic knowledge to understand. I was able to quickly read and understand the linguistic jargon on this page because I’m taking a linguistics class in college and understand the said jargon.

To start, I would propose adding a definition to the word intervocalic. A definition could simply be a couple words, “a consonant in the middle of a word [vowel]” (Wikipedia.com 2014). Or even removing the word intervocalic and replacing it with the definition would be equally effective. This is important to the understanding of the difference of the US and the Mexico dialects.

In addition, I would like to propose and edit to the word orthographic systems, by adding a link to the definition page that was seen earlier in the page. Even adding a short definition such as “a standard way to write a language” would be beneficial (Wikipedia.com 2014). If someone does not understand this word, they may not really comprehend that the writing systems used in the United States and Mexico differ.

Also, the linguistic jargon, tonal language needs a definition. One can infer that tonal languages may mean a language that involves tones, but I think it is important to write a definition such as, a language that uses pitch in speaking to denote different words and meanings(wisegeeks.com 2014) . This way, people understand that Yaqui is not a tonal language and does not use tone to differ meanings of words.

In addition, the word adjunct can be confusing for someone with limited knowledge of grammar. I think the Wikipedia page for this word would really help people understand how certain phonemes are used for “Mexicanism” in Yaqui.

I strongly feel that the linguistic jargon, glottal stop, should have a link to the Wikipedia Page for the definition of a glottal stop. This subject took my linguistics class in college quite a while to understand and a lot of practice to understand where the glottal stop happens (in the glottis). I think this would help people’s understanding of what the article means when it says how few glottal stops there seems to be in Yaqui. It would also aid in the understanding of how a faint glottal stop would sound. Without a definition or the link the Wikipedia page of a glottal stop, a person may be completely lost on this concept and not understand this section. I think a new Yaqui glottal stop page would be incredibly helpful with common words with glottal stop in Yaqui and possibly a sound clip of them.

The last revision I would like to propose is either removing or giving a definition of the word diphthong. A definition could include, a sound where two vowels connect making a continuous sound, such as in the O and I in oil or the I and A in triage (wiseGeek.com 2014). This is important because a layperson won’t know when the suffix -kan is added because they do not know the meaning of a diphthong.

Smithsonian20 (talk) 01:52, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

References

Language assistance

How do you say thanks.or thank you in yaqui Yucupicioyaqui (talk) 08:10, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

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karma shall strike when you least expect it 2603:8001:AA3C:9958:EC47:E9BA:3C69:B13 (talk) 23:20, 21 January 2024 (UTC)