Re: digraphs

Mark J. Reed wrote:

> Somewhat OT, "Kazakhstan" is an interesting case, really.  The native form
> of the name has /q/ for both "k" sounds, but in Russian, which is the
> version borrowed into English, the first became /k/ and the second /x/.   I
> find that odd; I know that Russian has words with initial /x/ (and medial
> /k/, for that matter), so I wonder why the two sounds got different
> treatments.
In Kazakh, /k/ and /g/ each have three allophones:

            /k/    /g/     /k/  /g/
            Front words    Back words
  Initial    k      g       q    R
  Medial     k      G       X    R

(The distribution is not symmetrical.)

So borrowing "Kazakh" from Kazakh /kazak/ [qazaX] to Russian /kazax/ is
really quite straightforward, as long as you know the Kk. allophony.

--
Tristan.

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