Re: Question about word-initial velar nasal

Tim May wrote:

> Danny Wier wrote at 2004-10-21 14:27:39 (-0500)
>  > This is a natlang/histlang/theory question, the answer of which may
>  > affect the development of my conlang.
>  >
>  > I've noticed that a lot of languages that have /N/ in their
>  > inventories do not allow it word-initially.
>
> 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/.

Welsh has initial /N/ as a nasal mutation of /g/.

Reply