Re: Question about word-initial velar nasal

On Sunday, October 24, 2004, at 12:38 , Danny Wier wrote:

> From: "Tim May"
[snip]
>> 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.
>
> Some of these have already been mentioned by others, so pardon the
> redundancy. These I know for sure:
>
> Albanian, and I have no idea how that happened.
> Celtic languages (Breton, Welsh, Irish and Scots Gaelic), but as a result
> of
> nasal mutation of initial velar stops.
> Vietnamese
> Tagalog and other Philippine languages
> Samoyedic languages like Nganasan (as the name implies)
Swahili has already been mentioned; Luo (a Nilotic language spoken in
Uganda & Kenya) also has initial /N/. I believe initial /N/ is not
uncommon in Subsaharan African langs.

Maori & Samoan certainly have initial /N/; IIRC this is common in the
Polynesian langs.

[snip]
> Apparently I will never escape my obsession with phonology.
Understandable   :)

Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
ray.brown@freeuk.com
===============================================
Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason."      [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]