The Sound of Dragonewts

[Richard S.]

Recently I saw an article on how Dinosaurs probably didn't sound like how many of us imagine. Even among the huge, impressive carnivores like the tyrannosaurus, they would've sounded much more like modern day birds rather than the monsters from Jurassic Park: lots of squawks, chirps, hoots, and murmuring, but no roaring. Assuming Gloranthan dinos are the same way, I wonder if this says anything about their cousins, the dragonewts. I'm thinking of Auld Wyrmish as being composed of these "close-mouthed" sounds, nothing requiring vocal cords. To a human ear it would sound very melodious and alien, but it would be hard to distinguish between similar sounds. Pre-tailed stages probably lack vocal cords at all, which would explain why they basically have to be mutilated to speak human languages.

I'm wondering how the split tongue could play into this - maybe it can be used to make two sounds at once, like a low and high hoot together, or a long trilling punctuated by hisses from the other side. You could have either a conversation with these "two-tone" words or two separate "one-tone" conversations at once, one with either tongue tip. If this is on top of the established olfactory and sensory components, I'd be surprised that a human could even learn 25% of the language without surgery.

[Joerg]

14 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

Recently I saw an article on how Dinosaurs probably didn't sound like how many of us imagine. Even among the huge, impressive carnivores like the tyrannosaurus, they would've sounded much more like modern day birds rather than the monsters from Jurassic Park: lots of squawks, chirps, hoots, and murmuring, but no roaring.

The cassovary at 7:20 is pretty close to sounds that I think a small dino would make. A kakapo mating call is another unworldly bird call, at least according to Douglas Adams.

Then there is of course "Tekeli Li!"

14 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

Assuming Gloranthan dinos are the same way, I wonder if this says anything about their cousins, the dragonewts. I'm thinking of Auld Wyrmish as being composed of these "close-mouthed" sounds, nothing requiring vocal cords. To a human ear it would sound very melodious and alien, but it would be hard to distinguish between similar sounds. Pre-tailed stages probably lack vocal cords at all, which would explain why they basically have to be mutilated to speak human languages.

Regardless of the dinosaur kinship to birds, sibilant sounds are established for draconic speech.

Given that Auld Wyrmish and Old Pavic mix to some extent, I expect the languages to have at least some shared articulation.

 

14 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

I'm wondering how the split tongue could play into this - maybe it can be used to make two sounds at once, like a low and high hoot together, or a long trilling punctuated by hisses from the other side. You could have either a conversation with these "two-tone" words or two separate "one-tone" conversations at once, one with either tongue tip. If this is on top of the established olfactory and sensory components, I'd be surprised that a human could even learn 25% of the language without surgery.

My guess would be sibilants or trills (like the labal "r" sound). Possibly some klicks, too.

[Sir_Godspeed]

Here's an informative video on how birds form human speech. TL;DR: they don't have vocal cords at all, but rather shape their throat with muscles we don't have. 

 

 

[g33k]

Birdcalls have, presumably, diversified a lot since (the rest of) the dinosaurs died out.  Everything today descended from those few species of birds that survived the Cretaceous extinction around 65 MYA (birds as a whole having diverged from non-bird dino's about 140MYA; but leaving plenty of feathered dino's not pursuing a bird-ish track).

Dino vocalizations may have been a LOT more diverse than that... they had a lot longer to diversify!

Edited February 3, 2020 by g33k

[Squaredeal Sten]

If i recall correctly, voice pitch depends on the size of the pipes, as with a pipe organ.  Therefore while song birds chirp in a high pitch, a dinosaur would be much much lower pitched.  More bass than an elephant.   A dragonewt would be somewhere in the middle if i understand their size correctly.   So I argue from this theoretical basis  that dragonewts don't chirp, to human ears, nor sing soprano  They may roar or they may lowe like a large bovine.

[Cloud64]

Great subject. One of those ideas that never occurs to you but seems obvious once you've heard it. For your delectation, a couple vids of recreations of dinosaur sounds based on bird sounds. I guess what we need for dragonewts is the extrapolation of a bird sound to a man-sized creature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=52&v=QtpSOpUDCb8&feature=emb_logo 

https://youtu.be/0oWur4bX4Lw

And here's one that discusses how sounds might have been made.

https://youtu.be/RwRR_qLgvw8

Edited February 4, 2020 by Cloud64

[Sir_Godspeed]

2 hours ago, Cloud64 said:

Great subject. One of those ideas that never occurs to you but seems obvious once you've heard it. For your delectation, a couple vids of recreations of dinosaur sounds based on bird sounds. I guess what we need for dragonewts is the extrapolation of a bird sound to a man-sized creature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=52&v=QtpSOpUDCb8&feature=emb_logo 

https://youtu.be/0oWur4bX4Lw

And here's one that goes into discusses how sounds might have been made.

https://youtu.be/RwRR_qLgvw8

Okay, that first link is legitimately terrifying, far more so than any roar.