jaw harp, ncas

Jaw harp (ncas in Hmong) communication system of the Hmong people described in Catlin (1982) and Poss (2012). The instrument itself is a “thin, flat rectangular piece of metal (copper alloy) in which a narrow incision separates the vibrating lamella from its frame” (Catlin 1982:185). Held between the lips with one hand and strummed with the other, the jaw harp resonates inside the oral cavity. The language is tonal. The surrogate system is evidently based on the articulation mechanism, rather than strictly encoding phonological information: “Tongue, teeth, and lips function to articulate the basic sound in the same way that acoustical energy produced by the vocal cords is transformed into intelligible speech” (185-6). In other words, performers speak with the jaw harp mostly as in regular speech, albeit with a transformed sonic result. Vowel articulation is unencumbered, as is the articulation of most consonants, but the bilabial and labiodental fricatives are omitted wholesale, the former due to the mechanism of the instrument, and the latter due to an injunction on players moving their lips (186). Catlin says that the overtones (“audible partials”) of the instrument can also reproduce linguistic tone (186); Poss suggests that “[s]ince the sounds are very close to speech, listeners are likely to rely more on the consonant and vowel information than the pitch information, although it may play a role, as well” (Poss 2012:31). Content is almost entirely limited to “secret and intimate courtship dialogues” between young men and women (Catlin 1982:185).

Catlin, A. (1982). Speech surrogate systems of the Hmong: From singing voices to talking reeds. The Hmong in the West: Observations and Reports, 170–197.,Poss, N. F. (2012). Hmong Music and Language Cognition: An Interdisciplinary Investigation [PhD Thesis]. Ohio State University.