Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: OT: Junk

From:H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...>
Date:Tuesday, September 9, 2003, 18:26
On Tue, Sep 09, 2003 at 02:04:12PM -0400, John Cowan wrote:
> H. S. Teoh scripsit: > > > > Most Chinese loans in Indonesia seem to come from Southern Chin. dialects-- > > > do they have /-N/ for Mand. /-n/ ? Or voicing of the initial? > > > > I don't know about /-N/, but Hokkien frequently has nasalized vowels where > > Mandarin has /-n/. E.g. Mandarin /huang2/ -> /~oui/; /san1/ -> /s~ua1/, > > etc.. > > Many Mandarin dialects render /N/ (but not /n/ AFAIK) as nasalization.
[snip] Interesting. Assuming that they have a common ancestor language, I wonder how this would have come about. It's quite fascinating that the nasality of the sound can be preserved even though the speakers probably don't have a conscious concept of nasality as such. T -- I am not young enough to know everything. -- Oscar Wilde

Reply

John Cowan <jcowan@...>