Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

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

From:Joe <joe@...>
Date:Thursday, November 25, 2004, 17:38
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.