Slit fricative (Was:Re: Saying "Thank you.")

> Date:    Tue, 28 Aug 2001 07:01:23 -0500
> From:    "Thomas R. Wier" <artabanos@...>
> Subject: Re: Saying "Thank you."
>
> John Cowan wrote:
>
>> Thomas R. Wier scripsit:
>>
>> > As he said, it does indeed arise from external borrowing. IIRC, the only
>> > known cases of a fricative to stop shift occur in Papua New Guinea.  It is
>> > at any rate an extremely rare type of sound change.
>>
>> It has also happened on de obscure island of Brooklyn.  Yiz got a problem
>> wit dat?
>
> I've read claims that this results from a Dutch substratum there.  This implies
> (a) that that feature of Brooklyn's speech is very old, and (b) that the Dutch
> were not more or less immediately swamped by anglophone settlers.
This reminds me of a question I have. I would like to know what y'all think of it.
In Dutch we have trouble pronouncing [T] and [D]. My question is about [T].
Dutch speakers that can't pronounce it, pronounce either a [t] or [s].
Now for some time I try to make a Gothic Pidgin, spoken in the Black Sea area
by speakers of Russian/Ukrainian, Turkish, Greek and other languages like
Georgian, Bulgarian, Adyghe etc. Greek has [T] too, so they don't have a
problem with the gothic [T]. But how about the other speakers?
How would they pronounce [T]. As a [t] like on the obscure island of Brooklyn?
Or as [s], like some Dutch speakers do?

Rob

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