Re: consonant length

Quoth Raymond A. Brown:

> >Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian
>
>Yes, indeed, and when one recalls that the main influences on Tolkien's
>Quenya were Latin, Cl. Greek and the FennoUgric langs, it is little wonder
>we find long consonants in Quenya.
And you really see them in Entish.  Oh, and on that note, Estonian actually
has *triple* consonants as well.  Example: what's written <b> has the value
[p], <p> = [pp] and <pp> = [ppp].  So on with <d>/<t>, etc.

> >Mongolian (?)
> >Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Ge'ez and daughter languages
> >Tamil and other Dravidian languages
> >Chechen (?)
> >Inuktitut (?)
>
>Certainly the Semitic & Dravidian langs - don't know enough anout the
>others, I'm afraid.  They also occur in Korean and, if I've been informed
>correctly, in Japanese.
Oh yeah, you have it in Japanese: Nippon, Hokkaido, and a bunch other words
I can't think of right now.  And you do have a long [m] in some Niger-Congo
and Khoisan (?) languages if I remember correctly.

Danny


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