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

Rob Nierse wrote:

> > 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?
When is this Gothic pidgin supposed to be present?  The last Gothic speakers
died out in the Crimea sometime in the late 1600s, IIRC, and I am not aware
of any studies or even reports about Gothic as a language at that time.  It could
well be that by that time, Gothic phonology had changed quite radically, and
could well have already shifted the original [T] to something else, precluding any
need to worry about what [T] shifts to.

> How would they pronounce [T]. As a [t] like on the obscure island of Brooklyn?
> Or as [s], like some Dutch speakers do?
I think Russian borrowed Greek loans with [T] as [f], as in Fyodor (< Theodore).
Also, the archaic Cyrillic character identical in form to Greek theta is pronounced
"fi".

===================================
Thomas Wier | AIM: trwier

"Aspidi men Saiôn tis agalletai, hên para thamnôi
  entos amômêton kallipon ouk ethelôn;
autos d' exephugon thanatou telos: aspis ekeinê
  erretô; exautês ktêsomai ou kakiô" - Arkhilokhos

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