Re: Japanese Long Consonants

Jeff Jones wrote:

>Japanese long consonants come mainly from /t/ + consonant AFAICT.
I know that's how they're indicated in writing (with the "tsu" character),
but how did they actually arise historically? From clusters? For ex., IIRC
"Nippon" is a compound of two Chinese words-- something like ni- '???' + pun
'origin'(?) Perhaps the ni- part ended originally in a C? (Of course,
"Nihon" also occurs.)

Re long voiced C:
> Japanese *does* allow them, e.g. beddo -- a Western style bed (IIRC),
Could that be an attempt to show the [E] vowel quality?

>even
> if they don't occur in native words. And I've seen "rr" in SinoJapanese.
How about long nasals, long /s/?  Fascinating language, I wish I'd had
time/opportunity to learn it............among many others :-(

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