Re: water (was:re:sounds like...)

Interestingly, all the Lumanesian words that have something to do
with water start with a lateral fricative. That sound has a wet and
slippery sound to my ears. Perhaps it has got something to do with
the fact that many such words in English that have that wet and
slippery feel to it start with the 'sl' cluster; e.g., slurp, slime,
slip. Below are some words in Teka (a Lumanesian language) with the
lateral fricative.

[L@hTa] 'water'
[Lu:pa] 'drink, sip'
[L@j?] 'drip'
[Lub?ma] 'rain'
[Lu~N?] 'sea'
[L@~N?ka] 'condensation, condense'

where: [L] = lateral fricative
       [T] = lamino denti-alveolar stop
       [N] = velar nasal
       [@] = schwa
       [~] = marks nasalization of the preceding vowel

Stress occurs in the first syllable of each of the words listed.
Stressed syllables also have phonemic tones marked in the following
way:
       - syllable final [h] = marks a slightly breathy level tone
       - syllable final [?] = marks a falling tone with a creaky
       voiced coda.
       - other stressed syllables without [h] or [?] codas have
       falling tones with a modal voiced coda.
       NB.: Some dialects fail to make the distinction between the
       last two tones. Thereby simplifying the tonal opposition to
       even and non-even tones.

As far as I recall, this is the first time ever that I'm posting a
sample of Lumanesian vocab. So I hope you guys like it so far.

Regards,
-Kristian- 8-)