Talk:Consonant

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The chart showing the consonants of English includes a voiced bilabial fricative, a voiced velar fricative, and a palatal nasal. As far as I know, these are not part of standard English, and nothing else I've looked at lists them (see, for example, the chart under English language). Josh Cherry 21:53, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

This should either be consonants in English (and those three removed), or a larger set - but saying what they are. As it stands it is incorrect. Secretlondon 21:59, Oct 22, 2003 (UTC)

OK, I yanked 'em. Josh Cherry 03:53, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Wouldn't spoken examples of the consonants be nice?

Wouldn't it be nice if there were sound clips with examples of the consonants after those sentences: "* The manner of articulation is the method that the consonant is articulated, such as ***nasal***, ***stop***, or ***approximant***. ...

• The airstream mechanism is how the air moves through the vocal tract during articulation. Most languages have exclusively pulmonic egressive consonants, but ejectives, clicks, and implosives use different mechanisms."

I'm sure scientifically the article is sound but it would make it a little bit more lively for non-linguistic people. Paulus/laudaka (add me to your YIM/AIM/ICQ/M$N M contact list if you like!) Laudaka's talk page 11:42, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

prism isnt the best of examples of a syllabic consonant, as it's one of those english words where even native speakers can't agree as to the number of syllables (some say 2, some say 1) http://www.ling.yale.edu:16080/ling120/Syllables/

Exit 05:44, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Huh, I'd say prism is a bad example of a syllabic consonant because it unambiguously has a nonsyllabic consonant: the word is pronounced [ˈprɪzəm]. Any confusion is due to the spelling. User:Angr 15:29, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Not everywhere! I say [ˈprɪzm] – I don't pronounce it with a schwa. garik 11:12, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] W as a semivowel

I've begun to believe that W is a semivowel, being that it is simply a dipthong like Y is. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.188.172.165 (talk • contribs).

Huh? Well, yes, /w/ can be considered a semivowel (and is mentioned at that article). However, I think your understanding is a little muddled. First of all, a letter of the alphabet can't be a diphthong or, if we're being strict, a vowel, semi- or otherwise—neither concept really make sense except with regard to sound. Of course, this is a strict definition: a letter can represent a semivowel or diphthong in some context. But in any case, /w/ clearly isn't a diphthong. A sound can't be both a diphthong and a semivowel. garik 11:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)