To gain more insight into a vowel sound's harmonic overtones, I sorted a list of onomatopoeic vocabulary words by their vowel color. Click here to see it.
This list was compiled by Kathy Steineman who has it sorted alphabetically at 300+ Onomatopoeic Sound Words: A Cheat Sheet for Writers.
So what do you think? Can you hear the related harmonics when you read the words on the list? Does a particular vowel carry with it a specific real-world musical association or emotion for you?
I've always known that the quality of a note, that which tells me whether it is being played by a violin or trumpet or clarinet, is dependent on the harmonic overtones of the sound wave. It never occured to me that vowel sounds (as well as consonants and the uniqueness of a person's voice) are also created by the brain's interpretation of sound wave overtones, both harmonic and inharmonic.
Well, of course. A sound wave doesn't have any characteristic called eeeness or ooohness or aaahness, much less one called gruffness, whinyness or silveryness. The brain creates those perceptions out of the sound waves available.
Thinking about the vowel that a musical instrument is "saying" --
The violin says GREEN TEA, "eeeeeeeeeeeee screech"
The trumpet says BLUE MOON, "oooh toot toot toot"
The triangle says WHITE TIE, "tie tie chime chime"
More about onomatopoeia later.
The ESL class platform and marketplace, Preply, has compiled statistics on language patterns across the US. As you would guess, southern speakers use fewer syllables per second than people in some other parts of the country. However New Yorkers don't talk more rapidly than others. Instead they are more verbose, using more words to express each idea than people in some midwest states who are more concise.
Earlier this month on the CNN I listened to Sanjay Gupta's interview with Nina Kraus in his "Chasing Life" podcast segment "The Power of Sound". As a consequence, I ordered her book "Of Sound Mind: How Our Brain Constructs a Meaninful Sonic World". It's arrived. Now I just have to find the time to read it.
Sound, whether music, speech, a thunderclap or gunfire, takes place, not in the ears, but in the brain. Yet, neouroscience has produced relatively little research on the subject, especially compared to the study of brainwaves related to light and vision. Professor Kraus points out that hearing, not sight, is our early-warning system. In addition, our relationship with sound is interactive since we produce it and solicit it as well as interpret it, whereas sight is mainly a one-way street. Moreover, our "sound" mind interacts with all the other facets of our brain.
During the interview, Prof. Kraus played recordings of the brainwaves from several subjects who all listened to one, particular, popular song. Although each recording was slightly different, you could recognize that, same melody in all of them.
I didn't find it surprising that the subjects' brainwaves were similar -- but wait a minute -- I, myself, could recognize the song! That comes pretty close to being able to read someone's mind, doesn't it? Granted, this was just rhythm and pitch, not speech, and the brainwaves were created via active listening, not re-creating the song from memory. But still....!
I can't wait to see the results from additional studies that come out of her lab.
In the US when a government holiday falls on a weekend, offices are closed the following Monday, instead. So most people don't work but there are no holiday celebrations to see to, either. It's what I call a Snoozeday.
Today is such a day. I'm going back to bed.
I have a new favorite Holiday Season Color Vowel lesson. In a short introduction plus 4 short verses, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" uses every vowel in the CV chart except for ORANGE DOOR and PURPLE SHIRT. So add the slogan "Support Diversity" to the lesson and the vowels are all covered!
Even as a kid I always thought the other reindeer were fair-weather friends, wanting Rudolph as a companion only after he became famous.
While looking online for the lyrics, I ran into the story of Robert May, the author who originally wrote the tale, and his brother-in-law Johnny Marks who wrote the lyrics. Here's a link to the The Real Story Behind Rudolph. It is rather interesting, in itself.
One of my students pointed out that "your" as commonly spoken "yer", could be classified as PURPLE SHIRT rather than BLUE MOON.
Below is the CV list:
The winter holiday season is a great time to demonstrate to students the "split personality" of the English language -- its Germanic/Celtic nature of plus its Latin/French roots.
Every country and climate has its own Christmas or solstice celebration, usually featuring the colorful local plants available in that climate and traditional lights to illuminate the longest night of the year. In the English-speaking world, Christmas is a Christian holiday brought to England by the Romans. However many of the traditions and celebrations are inherited from the area's older, winter solistice celebration: holly, ivy, mistletoe, a Yule log.
Consider the dual etymologies of the following vocabulary:
"eat" vs "dine"
"drink" vs "imbibe"
"drink to" vs "toast"
"bestow" vs "donate"
"give" vs "confer"
"make merry" vs "celebrate"
"have fun" vs "revel"
"bedeck" vs "decorate"
"bell" vs "chime"
"sing" vs "chant"
This year, I chose "Jingle Bells", "Deck the Halls" and "Auld Lang Syne" as the best representatives of seasonal songs to teach my bricks-and-mortar class. They have a few "old-fashioned" words which need to be explained. But I forgot that I simply cannot carry a tune. Without a room full of students who already knew the tune, the singing effort turned into a sort of dull roar.
Next year I'll try "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". I can read that one as a poem.
