LeoMoser(Acadon@Acadon.com) sikayal:
> [snipping at will]
>
> Can any of you cite languages that make
> regular use of [hj] or close approximations?
Yivríndil uses /hj/ only in the verb ending <-hya>, although in this case
the /h/ is phonetically [x]. Quenya I think uses a sequence like [hj],
also spelled <hy>. I don't know of any Romanian words with [hj], but
they're possible phonetically. (Wracking brain for Romanian vocab)
> The initial hw- plays a prominent role in Ursula
> le Guin's Kesh. The [hw-] sound is very common
> in some dialects at least of English -- if one
> takes {WH} to be such.
It is either [hw] or voiceless [w], though I don't see much difference
between them.
> What other natural or constructed languages
> make use of [hw-] or have (more or less)
> similar sounds?
Gothic reportedly had [hw], as did Old English--both a regular development
of PIE *q.
> LEO
>
> ##############
> Leo J. Moser
> ##############
>
Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
"It is of the new things that men tire--of fashions and proposals and
improvements and change. It is the old things that startle and
intoxicate. It is the old things that are young."
-G.K. Chesterton _The Napoleon of Notting Hill_