The "ch" sound

[Biopolitics]

Dear forum members,
I'd like to take another sound that is apparently missing in English (and also in most Romanic languages except Spanish). It resembles a heavily voiced [h] and occurs in a lot of German words where it's denoted by the letter combination ch. For instance, I in German is ich, pronounced [ix]. I've heard that Scottish has a similar phoneme, one of the most familiar examples being loch [lox]. We all know what Loch Ness is and what prehistoric monsters seem to inhabit it. Is any related sound used in any of the numerous local dialects of either British or American/Canadian English?

 

[Piscean]

It resembles a heavily voiced [h] and occurs in a lot of German words where it's denoted by the letter combination ch. For instance, I in German is ich, pronounced [ix].

Not quite. You are confusing two German allophones, /x/, the voiceless velar fricative of doch, and /ç/ the voiced palatal fricative of ich.

The /x/ is very similar indeed to the sound at the end of loch in Scottish English, and at the beginning of Llandudno in Welsh.

Neither sound occurs in British English, though some Scouse (Liverpool English) speakers produce /ç/, /x/ or /χ/ as an allophone of /k/ after a vowel.

 

[Biopolitics]

Thanks a lot for correcting me. German has even three similar phonemes: [h] like in halt, [x] like in Buch (book), and [ç] like in Lerche (lark). What about the American continent that is so strongly influenced by the settlers of Scottish and especially Irish origin? I presume that somewhere, for example, in Oklahoma, a similar sound might be in use, particularly in the speech of the Amish (of originally German descent).

 

[Biopolitics]

Quote: Scouse (Liverpool English) speakers produce /ç/, /x/ or /χ/ as an allophone of /k/ after a vowel.
Question: Do they habitually pronounce these sounds or is the pronounciation somehow related to their emotional state/attitude/physical condition? Imagine that, e.g., only an angry Liverpool inhabitant switches from /k/ to /x/. Perhaps, an extremely tired guy after an exhausting wiorkday can't help pronouncing /χ/ instead of /k/ when talking to his boss. Alternatively, a happy Scouse speaker might use / ç/ to show that he/she feels on top of the world. If this were sometimes the case, these allophones would acquire some additional meaning. Further language evolution would transform them into full-blown phonemes.

 

[Piscean]

I don't think it has anything to do with emotion, but I am far from an expert on Liverpool English.