Re: What's SHCH?

{ 20040723,0119 | Jean-François COLSON } "In Russian, there's a letter
which is commonly transliterated as "shch" in English. "ch" is an
affricate. But what is "shch"."

It is a shorthand way to write the cluster sh /S/ (or perhaps we might
buck the trend and mark it as the /s`/ it so often appears as) + ch
/tS/ (or perhaps we might buck the trend and mark it as the /ts`/ it so
often appears as). In some dialects, it is pronounced /s`:/ (i.e. a
carefully geminated "sh") and might alternately be transliterated [ ssh
].

I believe - and can look up if people are actually interested - that
originally this letter represented the simpler cluster [ sht ], which
again would either be /St/ or /s't/ depending on your preferences.

"Kajpa has also "fp", "st", and "xk" (where "x" is a velar fricative)
as separate phonemes. Is there a special word for such sounds?"

Clusters!

They do somehow remind me of the preaspirated consonants, though. These
are common in the Algic (Algonkian+) family like Cree. Perhaps from
homorganic realisations of preaspiration evolved stops: it certainly
happened in Algic, though never to [fp]. [st] and [xk] are attested,
albeit not in the same language, as derivatives of Common Algonkian
forms in *hC (where C=consonant).

em'ly
********
EMILY0
http://homepage.mac.com/cafewrack

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