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Re: Brr (was: Re: A few questions about linguistics concerning my new project)

From:Douglas Koller <laokou@...>
Date:Tuesday, July 31, 2007, 19:04
From: "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>

> Yeah, Arabic was the first thing I thought of, too. Classical Arabic > had, IIRC, a 3-quality x 2-quantity system: a, a:, i, i:, u, u:. MSA > still has that structure but I think the quantitative distinctions > have been replaced by qualitative ones.
Hence, "at least in theory."
> Also, there seems to be a > mapping at work in some borrowings that turns short i and u into e and > o, respectively.
IIRC, I read somewhere that the Italian "tavola" has made it into Arabic, which already has a word for "table." Maybe it lends an exotic air, like "al fresco" in English; or maybe it designates a specific kind of table, like "rijsttafel" in English; or maybe it just made it into Arabic just 'cause. Too, that romanizations offer Koran/Quran, mujahideen/mujahedeen, Hizbullah/Hezbollah, heck Muhammad/Mohammed, would seem to indicate that the pure a-i-u system has a degree of flexibility within it, as you mentioned above, even with indigenous words. Kou