Re: Is "ma" Proto-World? (Re: Re: Comparison ofphilosophicallanguages)

Nik Taylor writes:
 > Tim May wrote:
 > > I know the Japanese _think_ children mispronounce [s] as [tS],
 > > but is this really true?  How likely is it on a phonetic level?
 > > I mean, there are a lot more languages with /s/ than with a
 > > phoneme /tS/, which would suggest to me that it's unlikely as a
 > > childish mispronunciation.
 >
 > Well, as I understand it, in Old Japanese, /s/ was /ts/, so
 > presumably -chan originated back then, a /ts/ -> /tS/ seems a
 > plausible childish pronunciation.
 >

That does sound much more likely.  What's interesting, if this is the
case, is that an impression of the kind of errors made by children has
endured in the culture past a sound change which renders such errors
improbable.


 From _Mangajin's Basic Japanese Through Comics_:
| In the world of Manga, the _shi_ sound is hard for children to make,
| and with very young children it typically comes out as _chi_.  Our
| more linguistically-enlightened colleagues tell us that in the
| languages of the world, the "s" sound is more common by far than the
| "ch" sound, and that phonetically, such a substitution is unlikely.
| No matter what the case, in the world of manga, TV comedy, etc.,
| this substitution is perhaps the most common way of giving speech
| that infantile touch.

NOTE: although most of the examples given (of baby-talk in Japanese
comics) involve [Si] (orthographically, and perhaps phonemically,
/si/) there are some based on other s- syllables.  There's also an
example given of [tsM]->[chM] substitution ([tsM] is orthographic
<tu>), showing the same mispronunciation you suggested.