Re: Phonetic scripts and diphthongs ...

On Friday, July 16, 2004, at 12:39 , j_mach_wust wrote:

[snip]
> Exactly. I believe it's a peculiarity of the English alphabet that
> certain affricates are represented by single letters.
Only [dZ] is represented by a single letter, [tS] is not - and English has
no other affricates.

> This is only
> because historically, they were single sounds. English /dZ/ was once
> [j].
Not in English it wasn't. The sound came into English from Norman French
as [dZ] (in modern French, the old French [dZ] has become simply [Z]). The
Old French affricate [ts] simply became [s] in English borrowings, as
neither Old English nor Middle English (nor modern English) has the
affricate [ts].

(Where [ts] does occur in English, they are two phonemes).

> In German, e.g., you see that certain affricates are represented
> with single letters (<z> [ts],
Yes - its not only the English version of the Roman alphabet that
represents an affricate with a single letter - nor, indeed, just the
English & German versions.

> and in alemannic German <k> [kx]), but
> others are represented with compound letters (<pf> [pf], and <tsch>
> [tS]). The other English affricate, /tS/, is represented by a digraph,
> <ch>.
Nor is it peculiar to varieties of the Roman alphabet. The various
versions of the Cyrillic alphabet certainly have single symbols for
affricates (tho not for diphthongs) - and so do many other alphabets.

Ray
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