Re: A sound change question...

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Cowan" <cowan@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2003 1:55 AM
Subject: Re: A sound change question...


> 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.
The only English borrowed with [x] is 'loch'.  And it keeps the [x].

> --
> BALIN FUNDINUL          UZBAD KHAZADDUMU        jcowan@reutershealth.com
> BALIN SON OF FUNDIN     LORD OF KHAZAD-DUM      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
>

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