> John Vertical wrote:
> >>On 8/6/07, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
> >>
> >>>Thinks: how many different values are or have been given to |c| in
> >>>natlangs? I can think of /g/, /k/, /tS/, /ts/, /s/, /dZ/, /c/ and /|/
> >>>(dental click).
> >>
> >>IIRC, it's /D/ in Fijian.
> >>
> >>Who has /g/ for |c|?
> >
> >
> > Latin, before <G> was invented.
>
> Quite right. I carefully wrote "are or have been."
>
> In fact, of course, /g/ was the original value that C had, the symbol
> being ultimately derived, via western Greek, from Semitic 'gimel' - the
> 3rd letter of the Old Phoenician & the modern Hebrew abjad.
>
> The problem came when the Roman unadvisedly imitated the Etruscan way of
> writing /k/, i.e. K before /a/, Q before back vowels and C in other
> positions (the Etruscans had no /g/).
>
> That phonemically silly way of writing /k/ eventually got reformed, but
> at the expense of using C more often so that the latter represented both
> /g/ and /k/. Clearly this was not satisfactory and at some or other
> (according to Roman tradition, it was due to guy called Spurius
> Carvilius Ruga in 230 BCE), it was decided to amend existing
> inscriptions by adding a small stroke to the lower curve of C when it
> represent /g/, thus quite unnecessarily (after all they still had K), a
> new letter was born.
>
> But I guess it saved K from the fate that awaited C :)
> --
> Ray
> ==================================
> ray@carolandray.plus.com
>
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
> ==================================
> Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
> There's none too old to learn.
> [WELSH PROVERB]
>