Re: RV: Old English

At 13:27 28.3.2000 -0500, John Cowan wrote:

Good heavens, is there a standard Swedish way to pronounce "Xhosa"?

Nope.  News readers usually say ['k_ho:sa]

As for _Hoxha_ they usually said ['hOdja], i.e. reasonably correct.

So _xh_ is not a /S/ spelling in Swedish...

The full list:

<Where *is* that dang "Swedish phonology" textbook?  Ah, there...>

ch*, che, g, ge, gi, ige, j, je, sc, sch*, sh*, shi, si*, sj**, sk**,
skj***, ssi, ssj***, stg, sti, stj***, ti*, xj****

* marks spellings that occur in foreign words with some frequency.
** marks spellings that occur in native words with some frequency.
*** marks spellings that occur in small sets of native words.
**** _xj_ occurs only in the place name _Växjö_, where it maps to /kS/ --
[kx] in the local pronunciation!

As can be seen this list exceeds 18.  It depends on whether you count e.g.
_ge, gi, ige_ as _g_+ silent vowels, or _ssi_ and _ssj_ as special cases of
_si_ and _sj_.  My favorite is _stg_, since it only occurs across compound
boundaries, where one word ending in _st_ is compounded with a word
beginning in a _g_ that maps to _j_! :-)

/BP

"Doubt grows with knowledge" -Goethe