Re: Chinese Dialect Question

JS Bangs wrote:
> Mark J. Reed sikyal:
> > There are languages with more than one.  For instance,
> > /4/ and /r/ are distinct in Spanish (c.f. "pero" vs. "perro").
>
> I don't think we can count this as "two kinds of 'r'". The
> distinction between [4] and [r] is one of length in Spanish...
Okay, Jesse, how about Czech?  Not only does it have two
radically different sounds represented by the Roman letter "r"
(and only distinguished by putting a harchek on one of them):
The harchek "r" sounds (to the listener's ear) like a bastard
child of some "s" family, though it's made in the same part of
the mouth as the other Czech "r" is made in.

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