TEXT AND PHONEMES Both words and phonemes without meaning are used. The text consists of the word word in 5 different languages which are cut into syllables and phonemes: Icelandic: German: Romanian: Arabic (dialect): Arabic (Koran):
orð wort vorb kilma kilmeh
[o] [r] [ð] [v] [ ] [t] [v] [o] [r] [ba] [k] [i] [l] [m] [a] [k] [i] [l] [m] [e] [h]
[o]: as the o in German wort. [r]: performed with the tongue (as in Spanish). [ð]: as the sound between s and th in Spanish Barcelona. [a]: as in English are. [e]: somewhere between the Danish e and æ. It is the task of the singer to make these words as understandable as possible when they occur completely or partly even though exposed to different kinds of distortion (performed whispering, singing, mimed while playing back audio samples into the mouth or infiltrated by phonemes with no meaning). Other phonemes ['t]: ‘vacuum t’. (‘tsk, tsk’ in the comics...) [ng]: nasal sound which leaves the tongue free to make the ['t]-sound. [nose-f]: closed mouth, noisy sound from blowing air out the nose. [f], [fr], [s], [u], [ga], [da].