Re: Sound changes

On Sun, Aug 25, 2002 at 05:47:06PM +0000, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> Teoh wrote:
> >
> >On Sat, Aug 24, 2002 at 12:17:27PM +0000, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> >[snip]
> >> The Cantonese name _Ng_? Please tell that there's a vowel missing here
> >> somewhere - a word  [N=] ought to be illegal!
> >[snip]
> >
> >No, I believe it *is* [N=]. In fact, my own mother tongue has it too. [N=]
> >(rising tone) means "yellow". Although in my generation, it has become
> >[u~j~i~] instead.
> >
>
> Well, that leaves us with no choice - we must imprison all Cantonese
> speakers as well as all older-generation speakers of your mothertongue
> (which I fail to recall what it is) ... :-)
[snip]

Well, imprisoned or not, we will continue to inflict upon the world our
language, which differentiates between aspirated, non-aspirated, voiced,
and unvoiced stops, differentiates between nasal and non-nasal vowels, and
is TONAL (7 tones, no less!), and of course, which has cute words like
        [N=]    (low rising) "yellow" (it is actually pronounced [?N=], if
                that makes you happy :-P)
        [m=]    (low level) "not" (borrowed from Cantonese)
        [mN=]   (low rising) "gate", in my generation it has mutated into
                [mu~i~].
        [sN=]   (high rising) "to waste" (which still remains that way in
                my generation) -- with the older generation it also has
                the obsolete meaning "to play".
        [tN=]   (low falling) "hot", "scalding"
        [pN=]   (low falling) "rice"
        [nN=]   (high falling) "people", as in, [kaki.nN=] "own people",
                used as a way to identify oneself as part of an inner
                circle.
        [k_hN=] (mid level) "hole", "pit".

Don't you just love the last two? And tonal too, no less. :-P


T

--
I am BOFH. Resistance is futile. Your network will be assimilated. --
darthaggie, K5