Re: A sound change question...

On Wed, 6 Aug 2003 20:55:01 -0400 John Cowan <cowan@...>
writes:
> Steg Belsky scripsit:
> > /w/ to /gw/ (some spanish dialects, Germanic borrowings into
> > Romance)
> I don't think this is so much a sound change as a rule for
> borrowing.
> Spanish didn't have initial /w/, so it used /gw/ to represent
> foreign
> [w].  Similarly, when English borrows a word with [x], it
> represents
> the [x] with /k/, but that does not mean there is or was a sound
> change
> from /x/ to /k/ (more like /f/, zero, or zero with compensatory
> lengthening.
-

Well, when it comes to finding it in Spanish dialects, i was thinking of
the pronunciation of "huevo" as "güevo".


-Stephen (Steg)
 "renew our days like the ancient times..."

Reply