Talk:Yapese language

Latest comment: 11 years ago by Kwamikagami in topic Yapese has ejectives


Early discussion edit

I am a complete newbie to editing wikipedia pages (as opposed to using them :-)). I have had considerable experience studying Yapese, including two books ("Yapese Reference Grammar" and "Yapese Reference Grammar") and 8 years living and working in Yap in the Education Department. I would like to add to the stub page for "Yapese Language" but am a bit nervous about doing so as I am less than fully confident of a number of facts, and have very limited time.

If anyone has any advice for me, please e-mail me: [removed email address]

John Thayer Jensen 22:55, 12 September 2006 (UTC)—Preceding unsigned comment added by Jjen009 (talkcontribs)

Hi John, I've removed your email address as Wikipedia pages are copied on many other websites, making email addresses very public. I would recommend Wikipedia:WikiProject Languages for any specific questions but otherwise make sure that you have gone through the Wikipedia:Tutorial and be bold. Cheers, BanyanTree 00:30, 19 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
John, I'd be happy to help you get info about Yap onto this page. Fascinating language, and I very much appreciate your work. Gholton (talk) 04:23, 14 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

Yapese has ejectives edit

[copied from talk:ejective consonantkwami (talk) 18:16, 7 August 2012 (UTC)]Reply

The article says "[p’], on the other hand, is quite rare." However, the language of the island of Yap, which I worked on for about 20 years, certainly has what I referred to in my books on the language ("Yapese Reference Grammar" and "Yapese-English Dictionary" - John Thayer Jensen et al) as glottalised consonants, including p', t', k', also f' and th' (inter-dental slit fricative) - also glottalised nasals m', n' and ŋ' - but of course these are not ejectives. Yapese has non-glottalised ch (palatal affricate) and s, but these do not occur glottalised.

I call the stops and fricatives glottalised; they are certainly ejectives by the definition given in the article. --John Thayer Jensen 05:26, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Micronesian Scouting edit

Can someone render "Be Prepared", the Scout Motto, into Ulithian, Woleaian, Yapese, Pohnpeian, Kosraean, and/or Chuukese? Thanks! Chris 04:36, 8 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Why so much about glottal stop? edit

I wonder why this article has such a focus on glottal stop? This is a relatively common sound in the world's languages, so not particularly relevant here. (The issue of how to write the glottal stop is another matter, as the has definitely not been well-received in the practical orthography.) A much more distinctive feature is the presence of glottalized consonants, something which is found in only one other Austronesian language (Waima'a of East Timor). Gholton (talk) 04:21, 14 July 2012 (UTC)