Neitrāls vārds

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-- Wikimedia Commons Welcome (talk) 15:00, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Recordings of Latvian minimal pairs and sets

Hello! I noticed that you have recorded many soundfiles of Latvian words. I was wondering if you could record some examples of pitch accent minimal sets from en:Pitch accent#Lithuanian, Latvian and Livonian or en:Latvian phonology, to illustrate the pitch accent of Latvian. For instance, the Pitch accent article lists the forms [zāːle] (hall), [zâːle] (grass) and [zàːles] (medicine) in IPA; I think these words are recorded as individual files, but could you record them in a single soundfile? Similarly with loks "spring onion", loks "bow", logs "window", which are listed in Latvian phonology. (It seems these examples come from the Latvian article on the Latvian language.) Let me know if you'll do this. I and other English language enthusiasts would certainly appreciate it! And if you would record other minimal pairs and sets, illustrating long vowels for instance, that would be wonderful as well. Erutuon (talk) 23:36, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Also, I know you are a Latvian speaker, but I do not know how well you speak English; my apologies if my comment is hard to understand. (Then again, I know many people around the world learn English these days...) Erutuon (talk) 00:13, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Erutuon! Sorry, my wiki editing patterns are very on-and-off, so, it can take time before I see a message. Perhaps you already came by these wikt:en:Category:Latvian minimal pairs for intonation? All of the ones that have files are listed here w:lv:Latviešu valodas minimālie pāri pēc intonācijas (note: only one tone is given for dzīt and Xil's recordings of zāle are a bit "fuzzy" as she had recorded them quite a few years ago.)

If you want a single file I can offer you the one that's given here w:lv:Geminācija#Morfoloģiski motivēti gari līdzskaņi, it's not just tone but (morphologically motivated) long consonant as well though.

When I had time to do them I did them in batches of hundreds so I could streamline the whole process as there was a backlog of requessts nearing 3k (there are still ~1.2k to be made.) This means that generally they are made one right after the other.

Also, for most of Latvia there is a two-way distinction: level vs. broken, including in my native Riga which can be considered the de facto standard (and in Latgale falling vs. broken which to me sounds like they are doing broken all the time). In practical terms this means that any possible triplets will be merged into a pair (spring onion and arch bow is the same for me contrasted with window), in some cases I feel that either of the two tones are possible for a prototypical falling tone word, like here: wikt:en:gaist#Pronunciation. Neitrāls vārds (talk) 06:47, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Latvian Tones in Riga

Hi! I greatly appreciate your contribution to Latvian audio, but I am confused about the way tones merge in Riga. You say that you contrast "logs" with "loks" and the other "loks," meaning that the falling tone is pronounced as a level tone. However, Wikipedia says the following:

"Speakers of Rīga Latvian and other more westward varieties differentiate only between level and broken pitches with the falling pitch being merged with the broken one. Thus the Standard Latvian 'minimal triplet' or 'minimal set' of [zāːle] (hall), [zâːle] (grass) and [zàːles] (medicine) in Rīga Latvian would be reduced to 'hall' (level pitch) and 'grass' (broken pitch) and 'medicine' would be pronounced with a broken pitch just like 'grass.'"

I imagine that perhaps this was an error, but it seems that the words on the falling tone page are all pronounced with a falling pitch contour, like how the words on the broken tone page are pronounced.

What confuses me more is that on the minimal pairs page, the word "aušana," as in "putting on shoes," is "àušana" in the literary language and merges to "aûšana," as Wikipedia says. Also "zāles." Your recordings support this pattern. On the chart, there are also examples of the contrary: "aust" with a falling tone gets a level tone pronunciation. Same with "tā" and "loks." So is it that the falling tone can merge into either the level tone or the broken tone, with one direction being the exception? Wikipedia suggests that merging with level tone is the exception, as do your recordings on the falling tone page, but what you said, plus some examples from the chart, hint that merging with broken tone might be the exception.

It would be greatly helpful if you could explain the general pattern of tone merging, stating which direction is the exception and whether the recordings on the falling tone page actually reflect how you would pronounce those words.

--Chaojidage (talk) 05:57, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Special Barnstar
	Hi, I've appreciated a lot your Latvian audio uploads. Rádoby Raádoby (talk) 23:19, 26 July 2020 (UTC)