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Re: aspirated m?

From:Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>
Date:Friday, November 26, 2004, 18:22
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)

Replies

Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>