Re: Syllable-Initial /N/

Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> En réponse à Garth Wallace <gwalla@...>:
>
>
>>>In Japanese, /g/ is very often pronounced [N]. It seems to be very
>>
>>common.
>>
>>Really? I've never noticed that.
>>
>
>
> Well, I did ;)) . Actually, it's even the standard Japanese pronunciation
> that /g/ is [g] at the beginning of a word and [N] otherwise. It's a remnant of
> the time when the Japanese voiced stops were actually prenasalised.
>
> Note that [N] is slowly losing ground and more and more Japanese people just
> pronounce [g] in any position. Still, from what I've heard, [N] for /g/ is
> still pretty common. You'll still need a generation or two before this
> allophone disappears.
Wow, you learn something new everyday. Thanks, Christophe!