Re: reformed Welsh Spelling - comments?

Quoting Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>:

> On Thursday, December 4, 2003, at 09:20 PM, Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> > Then perhaps you can answer the question I had under the assumption that
> > it
> > was meant to be [X]?
>
> Correct - it was meant to be SAMPA [X], i.e. IPA cursive Greek khi.
>
> > Namely, what other languages are you thinking of that
> > writes it as |ch|? I still can't think of any.
>
> {sigh} I meant a voiceles "guttural" fricative (i.e. using 'guttural' in
> its
> older pre-feature-geometry sense), i.e. any voiceless fricative made at
> back
> of the mouth, whether velar [x] or uvular [X].  I know of no European
> language
> that has these as two distinct meanings; and I have been told that Welsh
> is not
> the only European language to possess it.  IIRC a linguist from that part
> of the
> world told me it varied in different Slav langs - but either
> pronunciation on the part of L2 speakers is understood.
>
> In short, I meant all those languages where popular books say, as they do
> for
> Welsh: "like the _ch_ in Scots _loch_."
OK. That was not clear to me.

I'd, btw, like to apologize if you perceived the tone of my previous post as
unfriendly; it was not meant to be, but when I reread the quotes, it strikes
me as a bit ... sarcastic.

                                                            Andreas

Reply