Talk:Dahalo language
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[edit] Number of speakers
The first paragraph of the article says 3000 people:
Dahalo is an endangered South Cushitic language spoken by about 3000 people in Kenya.
However, the box to the right says 400. Which is correct? Mga 01:25, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
- Good catch. There are at most 400 speakers now (cf. Brenzinger 1992, Tosco 1992). I've changed it. — mark ✎ 07:51, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Airstream mechanism
It says in the article that Dahalo is perhaps the only language to employ all four airstream mechanisms used in human language. What about Xhosa for example? --Midjungards (talk) 15:02, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
- You are right, Xhosa uses plosion, implosion, ejective, and velaric mechanisms. I'll edit the sentence. (Taivo (talk) 16:54, 4 March 2008 (UTC))
- That might be a theoretical difference. Xhosa is often represented with the ejectives being phonetic detail. However, you can't do that with Dahalo. kwami (talk) 18:55, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
- Personally, I think that the "X language is unique" comments are pretty lame in linguistics. Just as soon as one is published, it's contradicted in the literature by half a dozen people who say, "Uh, no, this language does that, too." (I've written "Uh, no" articles myself.) Since some sources treat the Xhosa ejectives as subphonemic and others treat them as phonemic, it's best to take the "uniqueness" tag off Dahalo I think. Zulu also has the same four way distinction as Xhosa (although the ejectives may be subphonemic there as well). But within Khoisan, !Xu also has a phonemic four-way. (Taivo (talk) 20:02, 4 March 2008 (UTC))
- That might be a theoretical difference. Xhosa is often represented with the ejectives being phonetic detail. However, you can't do that with Dahalo. kwami (talk) 18:55, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
