Re: the sound of "DJ" (was Re new Unnamed Conlang)

On 20 Sep 2004 08:29:32 Rodlox <Rodlox@HOT...> quoted:

> > --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Rodlox <Rodlox@H...> wrote:
> >
> > > jy (like "DJoser" in Ancient Egyptian)
> >
> > Does anyone what Ancient Egyptian sounded like
>
>  actually, after some thinking, I recall that I put a DJoser-
style DJ
sound
> in Metes, which I wrote in X-Sampa.
>
>  it's [J\] if I recall.
  Ancient Egyptian had millenaries to develop, therefore I think
more than one actual pronunciation can be assigned to the
hieroglyph of 'snake' (and its descendants).

  My sources tell that this sound goes back to a common Afroasian
*[g]. It is the starting point and we know also the final
developmental stage: AFAIK in Coptic letter 'janja' sounds [dZ].

  Thus we can draw a sound change sequence like:
(a) Afroasian [g] > [g'] > [d'] > [dz\] > Coptic [dZ], or
(b) Afroasian [g] > [g'] > [J\] > [J\j\] > [dz\] > Coptic [dZ], or
(c) ...

  There is no actual information about which intermediate phase was
valid in time of Djoser, thus we can liberately choose any of them.


  You must decide whether diacritical |-y| in your notations |jy|,
|sy|, |zy| is systematical or not. If it is not, |jy| can be [J\].
But if it is, I propose either changing the orthography to |dy| or
the pronuncuation to [J\j\] or better [dz\].

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