Re: Question about word-initial velar nasal

John Cowan wrote:
> Roger Mills scripsit:
>
>
>>>>Incidentally, what languages _do_ allow /N/ initally?  Offhand, I can
>>>>only think of Vietnamese and Tibetan, and it's a tricky thing to look
>>>>up.
>>>
>>>Thai is one that comes to mind, as well as Cantonese. It looks like
>>>Indonesian also has a few words with initial ng-. I'm sure there must be
>>>others; I assume that Nganasan, at least, is pronounced with an initial
>>>/N/ or /Ng/.
>>
>>Many Indonesian/Philippine/Oceanic languages have /N-/; not many of the
>>forms are reconstructible all the way back, however.
>
>
> Middle Chinese had /N-/, and several Sinitic languages retain it, although
> in Mandarin it's become /w-/.  It makes me wonder about a possible
> Sino-Tibetan/Austronesian/Tai-Kadai Sprachbund effect, along with the
> more well-known ones.
Didn't /N-/ become zero or /R/ in Mandarin?

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

         Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
                                             (Tacitus)

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