Re: Sound changes

Teoh wrote:
>
>On Mon, Aug 26, 2002 at 08:33:53PM +0000, Andreas Johansson wrote:
>[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!),
> >
> > Does that mean that you've got four series of stops? Neat, if so. As for
> > tones, I'm tone-deaf, and so couldn't care less ... :-)
>
>Yes, although not every syllable is differentiated at all four levels.
>Nevertheless, you do have words like:
>         [mai]   (low falling) "No", "don't want", etc.
>         [bai]   (low rising) "eyebrow"
>         [pai]   (low falling) "to worship"
>         [p_hai] (low falling) "to send"
Counting the nasal stop is cheating! I was thinking of an Indicoid p~ph~b~bh
distinction. Having three series of oral stops is, while hard on my Germanic
ears, hardly very special.

[snip]

> > I somehow feel that [tN=] etc are are rather lesser crimes against
>humanity
> > that [N=] by itself.
>
>What about having 7 tones? :-P
As said, I'm practically tone-deaf, and so two, seven or eighty-five tones
make little difference to me.
>
> > And you still fail to say what your native language actually is!
>[snip]
>
>I am deliberately being obnoxious by evading the question. ;-)
>
>OK, OK, it's Hokkien. A contaminated Hokkien, that is. One that has mixed
>with local Malaysian languages and picked up some Malay words, some Indian
>words, as well as some English words (completely mangled, of course).
Thanks.

BTW, is the name "Hokkien" by any chance related to the province-name
Fujian/Fukien? Been meaning to ask this since I first heard the word
"Hokkien", but for some reason 've never come to it before.

                                                  Andreas

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