Re: question - Turco-Japanese (British Vikings, 400 AD)

Joe wrote:

> Paul Bennett wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 07:28:21 +0000, Joe <joe@...> wrote:
>>
>>> Well, the English wasn't /z/ - it was /s/, pronounced [z] (though I
>>> think this actually varied dialectally)
>>
>>
>>
>> I'm not sure the general population at the time were accomplished enough
>> phoneticians to know what an allophone was. Sounds like |z|? It's a |z|.
>>
>
> Well, it was written <s>, which suggests probably that it was treated as
> the same sound.
>
>
To improve on that - allophones exist in languages where phonetics is
not advanced.  I would say that a French or Norse origin would both be
equally sensible, because [z] being an allophone of /s/, the Norse have
been easily taken as an /s/, but, as [s] was the other allophone, that
could have just as easily been the origin.

It's a distinct possibility that the Norse invasion started it, and the
French reinforced it.  And the one that seems the most likely to me,
actually.