Re: aspirated m?

Ray Brown wrote:
> On Wednesday, November 24, 2004, at 07:11 , John Cowan wrote:
>
>> Ray Brown scripsit:
>>
>>>> I only really know for sure in Quenya and Sindarin.  However,
>>>> there are tenwa that could concievably be used for the purpose.
>>>
>>>
>>> Yes, yes - in any schematic system like tenwa there is likely to the
>>> possibility of signs for sounds that do not occur or even could not
>>> occur
>>> because they are physically impossible.
>>
>>
>> In Appendix E of the L.R., JRRT writes:
>>
>> # According to the principle observed above, Grade 6 [of the tengwar]
>> # should then have represented the voiceless nasals; but since such
>> sounds
>> # (exemplified by Welsh _nh_ or ancient English _hn_) were of very rare
>> # occurrence in the languages concerned, Grade 6 (21-24) was most often
>> # used for the weakest or 'semi-vocalic' consonants of each series.
>>
>> Now JRRT certainly knew his Welsh, so I would conclude that he is using
>> the term "voiceless nasal" loosely.
In a posthumously published essay "The Rivers and Beacon-hills of
Gondor" JRRT wrote that:

# Note 5: The forms canthui, enchui, tolthui are those of
# the southern Sindarin dialect adopted by the Noldor. In
# the Northern dialect (which perished in the course of
# the war against Morgoth) nt, nc, mp had remained
# unchanged. In the Southern dialects nt, ñk, mp remained
# when standing finally—or more probably the spirant was
# re-stopped in this position; for similarly final lth >
# lt, though rth remained finally. Medially however nth
# (nþ), nch (ñx), mf (mp with bilabial f), and lth (lþ)
# became long voiceless n, ñ, m, l, though the old
# spelling was mostly retained (beside nh, ñh, mh, lh),
# and among those to whom Sindarin became a language of
# lore, as the men of Gondor who were or claimed to be of
# Númenórean race, the spirant was reintroduced from the
# spelling. In true Sindarin of the Elves or Elf-friends
# of the early ages the final form was often introduced
# medially. In the transcription of Elvish Sindarin in The
# Lord of the Rings ll is used in the manner of modern
# Welsh for the medial voiceless l; as in mallorn <
# malhorn < malþorn < malt ‘gold' and orn ‘tree’.

So it seems |mh| is potentially ambiguous in the
romanization of Sindarin: it *usually* denotes
[v~], e.g. in _mhellon_ as a lenition of _mellon_,
while it *may* also denote [m_0], although the
latter is usually |mf|.  It also appears that |ll|
is ambiguous between [l:] and [K] -- only the
etymology can tell which is which.

A bit strange, since Old English would have suggested
the spellings |hn, hñ, hm, hl| for the voiceless
sonorants.
--

/BP 8^)
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se

         Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
                                             (Tacitus)

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