Re: NATLANG: Welsh <mh, nh, ngh> and French vowels

Trebor wrote:

>How do you pronounce Welsh <mh, nh, ngh>? Are they /m_0, n_0, N_0/, /m_h,
>n_h, N_h/, or something entirely different?
I happened to be sitting across the office from a native Welsh speaker
(originally
from north Wales, near Pwllheli) who is also quite phonetically savvy*.  The
fruits of
ten minutes' discussion with him are as follows: these sequences are only
found word-
initially (unless perhaps across morpheme breaks in compounds), where they
are
the result of nasal mutation of /p/, /t/ and /k/ respectively.  Although
this mutation
is triggered by a preceding word, /nh/ and /Nh/ at least can occur
utterance-initially,
for example in the context of a vocative exclamation: 'Father!' / 'Nhad!'

Rhys (the colleague in question) pronounces each one with a fully voiced
nasal and
a fully unvoiced /h/, whether following another word or not - i.e., [mh],
[nh], [Nh].
Though not a trained phonetician, I can't hear an obvious devoiced nasal
segment.

Final thought: next time you're at a Welsh rugby match, listen out for
someone
singing 'Hen Wlad fy Nhadau' :)

Hope this helps!
Jonathan.

*though not AFAIK a conlanger :(

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