Guttural language

A guttural language is a language that contains guttural sounds these are produced from the pharynx at the back of the throat or by the back of the tongue as well as the palate and uvula. The word guttural is derived from the French and Latin denoting coming from the throat. Sometimes whether a language is guttural or not could depend on differences within regions and countries. The study of "gutturals" falls under the field of phonetics.

Thus it means that a pronounced or heavy sound, letter, and word that emanates from the pharynx and up from the back of the throat makes a certain kind of very heavy and pronounced "throaty" sound, very alien to the modern spoken English language and sometimes found to be very hard on the ear of those accustomed to English sounds and pronounciations.

Some maintain that whether or not a language is perceived as having predominantly guttural sounds is subjective and that this classification is open to doubt. By the speakers of so-called guttural languages it is probably percieved mostly as attempt of anglophones to consider themselves vastly superior to anyone else.

However, English too has its gutturals, such as the letters "k", "c" (when it sounds like "k"), "q", "g" as in "go", and the "ng" and "nk" at the end of a word, and the vowels "a", "e", "i" ,"o", but they are all considered to be very "soft" sounding gutturals unlike those of other languages that stress them.

French, Arabic, Hebrew, Scottish, and also partly German, Dutch, Afrikaans, and Yiddish, are considered to be "guttural languages" meaning they have sounds in them that come from the back of the throat or tongue. And Sometimes whether a language is considered guttural or not could depend on differences within regions and countries.

There is the guttural "r" (sounds like gargling), the "ch" or "ugh" (sounds like a clearing of the throat), "h" (sounds like a very heavy breath), the "a" or "e" (sound like air coming up the throat from a tight stomach).The "k", "c" (as a "k"),"q","ng" and "nk" are gutturals.

See also Articulatory phonetics, linguistics, place of articulation, consonant, fricative consonant, glottis, trachea, esophagus, phone

External link

• How we speak & diagrams (http://www.fundooz.com/Knowledge/Know_your_body/HumanVoice.asp)