Re: Voiced Velar Fricative
From: | Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...> |
Date: | Thursday, December 19, 2002, 18:27 |
Quoting Christopher Bates <christopher.bates@...>:
> Is gh (i don't know the ascii ways of representing IPA sounds, but I
> mean a voiced velar fricative) common? I think english used to have the
> sound, as did welsh (or at least g used to be mutated to gh a long time
> ago) but for some reason it disappeared. I just wondered because I love
> the sound for some reason but I don't want to add it if its extremely
> uncommon in natural languages. Thanks in advance,
The sound is not at all rare, actually. It is somewhat marked, just
as any voiced fricative would be, but I can think of languages from
widely spread families that have it (e.g. Georgian, Coast Tsimshian,
Arabic etc).
=========================================================================
Thomas Wier "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
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Chicago, IL 60637