Talk:Mufian language

Note to passing talk viewers: discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics § interpretation of impossible sound ~ oklopfer (💬) 17:44, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

@Oklopfer: Foley (2018) says The /ʔʷ/ is a coarticulated glottal stop with lip rounding (page 311). Why the change? Snowman304|talk 02:25, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

@Snowman304 The transcription is of an impossible sound. A glottal stop has no phonation by definition, it is a closed glottis. It would not matter what position the lips are in. The implication from the source is a phonemically distinct sound from /ʔ/, so it has to truly be suggesting either [ʔw] or [ˀw]; that is, either a glottalic or otherwise (pre)glottalized /w/. But a "rounded glottal stop" is phonetically meaningless. ~ oklopfer (💬) 03:11, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

@ThaesOfereode please see my comment above - the same is true for Nizaa language. ~ oklopfer (💬) 03:15, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Okay, so admittedly, I'm somewhat out of date on my articulatory phonetics, but what is this sound supposed to be then? I don't see any reason to consider a labialized release as imperceptible. Several linguists use this IPA transcription and we have to supply some concept to the reader as to what this sound is supposed to represent. You used /ˀw/ on the Nizaa language article with no real explanation other than "erroneous". A "well it must be X" is not useful in the Wikipedia context. If you can supply an alternate interpretation of the transcriptions in the individual languages, I'm all ears. And they do need to be for the specific languages described therein; Americanist /y/ cannot be substituted for Slavicist /j/, nor vice versa. Wikipedia articles are here to telegraph information from reliable sources to a public medium, not divine notation. ThaesOfereode (talk) 03:30, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

@ThaesOfereode Sure, several other languages have this sound, typically transcribed as ⟨ʼw⟩, ⟨w̓⟩, or ⟨ⱳ⟩, and the palatal equivalent as ⟨ʼy⟩, ⟨y̓⟩, or ⟨ƴ⟩.

• Anonby (2008) for Mangbai language & Malo (2014) for Puguli language note it as preglottalization
• Beck (1999) for Lushootseed notes it as laryngealization
• Maïmouna Le Men (2007) for Lobi language notes both the labial and palatal forms as glottalized (can't find an ethical link to supply here, but a less ethical one pops up pretty quickly on search engines)
• Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996) & Newman (1996) for Hausa language note the palatal equivalent as laryngealized/glottalized
• Tadadjeu & Sadembouo (1979) for the General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages note the palatal equivalent as implosive

Happy to supply more sources if you want, since plenty exist; this is a non-exhaustive list, but should give a sense of what linguistics usually consider these sounds as. Multiple of these examples are from Cameroon, too, as Nizaa is.

For Nizaa in particular, Theil Endresen (1992) notes the fusion of ⟨ʼu⟩ (they/them) with auxiliary ⟨a⟩ to form ⟨ʼwaa⟩. In a slightly earlier work, Theil Endresen (1990), they/them is noted as [ʔu], i.e. preglottalized /u/. While in the phonology table Theil Endresen writes ⟨ʼw⟩ as [ʔʷ], it takes little imagination to interpret this instead as [ʔw], i.e. preglottalized /w/. In my opinion, it is far more preferable to transcribe to an audience a sound that can actually exist, particularly when the only place the transcription of [ʔʷ] is found is within the phonology table on a singular page for organizational purposes, and nowhere else in the text. Theil Endresen also notes in the 1992 publishing that ⟨ʼw⟩ is extremely marginal, only appearing in this singular word ⟨ʼwaa⟩.

I do also want to note that we do generally reinterpret Americanist phonetic notation for language articles into their IPA forms. This is a rather across the board practice. ~ oklopfer (💬) 05:45, 20 January 2026 (UTC)