On Tue, 31 Oct 2000, Roger Mills wrote:
>You probably know that Maori {wh} does correspond to /f/ in other Polynesian
>languages (except Hawaiian = /h/), and to both /p/ and /b/ in e.g. Malay and
>other western Austronesian languages. I've never seen a proper linguistic
>description of Maori, but my little "Beginner's Maori" by K. T. Harawira (a
>native) says: "_Wh_ is _not_ sounded as f in English..... Say the English
>word "what"...without the t... and you will have as near as possible the
>correct sound of _wh_."
For me that would be [hwa].
Padraic.
> Perhaps his "near as possible" means _not quite
>but close_? My suspicion, based on the history, is that it's very likely a
>voiceless bilabial fricative (IPA l.c. phi).