Re: THEORY: questions

I've heard |h| in English pronounced as /x/ by non-first-language speakers of
English, usually Greeks and people from the Balkans.

I think in their natlangs they don't have /h/.  So you could have /h/ turning
into /x/ in borrowings and in dialects growing up in communities who were
originally speakers of X (which doesn't have that sound) and are now speakers
of Y (which does have it).

Wesley Parish

On Tuesday 11 March 2003 08:25 am, you wrote:
> Quoting Rachel Klippenstein <estel_telcontar@...>:
> > So basically I get:
> > People can't think of any natlang where native [h] has
> > become any other sound, only ones where it is lost.
> > Chinese [h] became [k] in early Japanese borrowings.
> > People's conlangs have [h] becoming [x], [k_h] and
> > [?h]
>
> I've heard that some mediaeval Latin texts show "ch"=[k] were "h" would be
> expected. No idea as to whether this examplifies a change [h]>[k] or
> whether the scribe responsible spoke something that didn't have [h] and,
> like the earlier-mentioned Japanese, heard it as [k].
>
> [h], at least medially, can certainly change to [h\] and back. They're in
> free variation medially for many speakers of languages that allow medial
> /h/.
>
> AFMCL, Classical Klaish had initial and medial [h\]. Tairezazh and Steienzh
> jettisoned it everywhere, whereas Telendlest and Searixina devoiced it
> initially and kept it medially (with the evil twist that orthographically
> it was also devoiced medially).
>
>                                                     Andreas
>
>                                                        Andreas
--
Mau e ki, "He aha te mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."