Re: A problem solved: Arabisms in Spanish

John Cowan wrote:

> True enough.  However, Spanish grew a secondary /h/ as a result of a
> phoneme split: Latin /f/ became sometimes /f/, sometimes /h/, probably
> through an intermediate stage of an unvoiced bilabial fricative.
> In Old Spanish, "f" sometimes represents /f/, sometimes /h/.
> Eventually, a spelling reform took hold, and this /h/ became written "h=
",
> which persists even though the phoneme has disappeared.
>
> For example, Latin "fabulare" > OSp "fablar" [haBlar] > "hablar"
> still [haBlar] > "hablar" [aBlar].
In the Boyac=E1 dialect of Colombia the change is going on.  Many people =
form this
region, mainly country dwellers, pronounce no /f/ but /h/, even in cluste=
rs that
are not found in other Spanish dialects like: Francia /hransja/.  In Boya=
c=E1 like
most of Andean dialects, <j> is pronounced /h/.

As a matter of curiosity, in Boyac=E1 is common the use of "sumerc=E9" fr=
om "vuesa
merced" (your mercy) using the most modern "su" =3D your.

-- Carlos