Re: Etrscan alphabet (was: Value of Latin _x_)

At 8:35 pm -0400 16/4/01, Steg Belsky wrote:
>On Mon, 16 Apr 2001 20:03:23 +0000 Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>
>writes:
>> The symbols are SAMPA except that:
>> (a) Semitic emphatic are shown as t` and s` rather than t_?\ and
>> s_?\; also
>> _shin_ is conventionally shown as /S/ tho Steg suggests it might
>> have been
>> a lateral sibilant, i.e. SAMPA [K], Welsh {ll}
>
>> Ray.
>-
>
>Sorry if i wasn't clear on that...
>it's *ssin* which may have been SAMPA [K], not *shin*, which seems to
>have always been /S/.
>Ssin has the dot on the upper left, shin has it on the upper right.
Sorry - yes, I had misunderstood.  I hadn't realised the letter had always
denoted two different sounds.  I assumed that was a Hebrew peculiarity.

Did the corresponding letter have two sounds in ancient Phoenician and
other related Semitic languages?  It would seem odd to have one symbol only
if this were so.

Ray.

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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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