[gizmo686]

I had this realization during one of my later linguistics classes. It was a syntax class, so didn't really have anything to do with pronunciation; but it was an upper level class, so it was a safe assumption that everyone knew IPA.

In the beginning of the class, the professor introduced himself with "my name is X, but you can call me Y if that is too difficult". The two names were mostly the same, except that the first sound in X was a complete mumble, where I could not make out what he had said (and he repeated it several times). Later in the first class he handed out a syllubus which included his name in IPA. I immidietly knew not only how to pronounce it, but was able to do so without any difficulty.

(For those curious, his real name started with /ʒ/, while his nickname started with /dʒ/)

[StavrosK]

Can you post his name? I don't understand how it would be so hard to hear, hopefully he wouldn't mind.

[gizmo686]

Gesoel /ʒɛʒuɛl/

(Going off of memory here, I probably butchered the pronunciation anyway).

/ʒ/ does not occur in word-initial position in English, and for whatever reason it was incredibly hard for me to perceive it there.

There was probably other more subtle differences between the two that did not make it into the transcription (e.g., his native name was pronounced with his native accent instead of his English accent)

[StavrosK]

Oh aha, that's very interesting thanks! It's amazing how hard it is to parse things that you aren't primed for. I sometimes don't even recognize my native language for a while if I'm in an English-speaking country and hear it out of the blue without context.

[gizmo686]

I'm giving up my search for it, but I once read a research paper on categorical perception.

If you compare [ta] and [da], you find that the only difference is the time between when you make the consonant, and when your vocal chords start vibrating (voice onset time). In theory, VOT is a contimum, with any value being possible. However, in English it forms a tri-modal distribution /tʰ/ /t/ and /d/. The experiment artificially edited a sound to vary between /t/ and /d/, including with VOTs between the two that do not occur in English. What they found is that people put all of the sounds in 2 boxes, and were unable to distinguish between sounds in the same box, even if their VOT varied considerably.

However, when test subjects were played the same sounds, but told they were listening to rain drops, this effect disapeared, and they were able to distinguish between sounds in the same box.

[StavrosK]

Hmm, very interesting, thank you! Is it this one?

https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.103...

Seems to be exactly what you describe.

[gizmo686]

That is along the lines of what I was thinking, but does not make the point as cleany (they end up combining the speach-primed and non speach-primed data because participants said they percieved it as speach from the start.

They also used an ABX methodology, which forces the subject to put sounds into boxes by essentially asking if X is more like A or B, not if X is different from both.

The one I am thinking of used an odd-one-out methodology, where the subject was presented with AAX, and asked to pick which sound was different from the others (where the others were genuinly the same sound). The one I am thinking of also found a priming effect, which yours apparantly didn't.

[pdevr]

>/ʒ/ does not occur in word-initial position in English

Doesn't gendarme start with /ʒ/? Adopted word from French, but almost all words have origins somewhere else.

[hunter2_]

> /ʒ/ does not occur in word-initial position in English

I never noticed that until now. While it's obviously not an English word, plenty of English speakers have discussed French explorer Jacques Cousteau. I can't think of any other examples.

[open0]

"genre" is one of the few.

One of the languages I know allows for a word-initial /ŋ/, which English does not have at all.

[eythian]

New Zealand English (through Māori influence) has this, in names like Ngaire and places like Ngaio. This said, a lot (perhaps most, though it'll be regional I expect) of speakers will pronounce it as though the 'g' isn't present.

[bradrn]

A couple of years ago I had a geology class in which the lecturer (albeit a non-New Zealander) consistently pronounced Ngāuruhoe with initial /n/. Interesting to know that New Zealanders pronounce it with /ɡ/ instead. (I, of course, pedant that I am, insisted on pronouncing it with an initial /ŋ/.)

[hunter2_]

Ah, good call.

Vietnamese, by chance? I'm guessing that because the only initial /ŋ/ word on my radar is the name Nguyen.

[FreeFull]

Jean Luc Picard is a well-known name from fiction, too.

[marton78]

... and it bothers me a lot how it's consistently mispronounced as John-Luc in the eponymous series.