Re: OT: Junk
| From: | H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, September 9, 2003, 18:26 |
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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
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