Re: phonology of borrowed words

On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 02:05:10AM -0500, Erich Rickheit KSC wrote:

> Is there any sort of general wisdom about how 'foreign' phonemes
> get altered when brought into a language?
I think this depends on the specific phoneme inventory in question, but
it can also depend on nebulous things like where the speakers imagine
the boundaries of their phonemes to be (their boundary between 'e' and
'a' might not be where ours is).

> Is actually adopting those sounds common?
Usually in cases where the adopted-from language is one of prestige,
learning, government, etc.

For concrete examples, 'r' could get adopted as /d/ or (post-vowel) as
vowel-lengthening (for example, the Japanese say "Intaanetto" for
"Internet").  I'm not sure if 'l' would be adopted into the same phoneme
or not.  Maybe into /j/ or /w/?

Amanda

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