C++

No, this isn't posted to the wrong forum. It concerns the Norwegian
'kj'-phoneme, which i just found in the Sampa chart represented by C.
It's a funny phoneme, an unvoiced version of our j (Sampa j\), a bit
on the rarish side, and some say we are on our way to losing it.

Now, in Norwegian, these two are separate phonemes, but I just got a
CD by Mari Boine from which it appears that in Samic they are
allophones of the same phoneme. She has a song where a line is
repeated twice for each verse. The line begins with 'muitte', and in
the first repetition, the word sounds like Sampa 'muj\De' (or perhaps
d instead of D, but I think D), but in the other it sounds like
'muCte'. Curious phenomenon. I suppose it may have a meaning of some
sorts.

Urianian also has both of these sounds, represented by j (j\) and c
(C). (Don't adjacent languages often tend to approach each other
phonetically, as well as grammatically?) I have found that they must
continue the IE labiovelars. In the lowland dialects the j\ has
merged into the C. The writing system however is based upon the
highland dialect spoken in the vicinity of the town Uria, where the
first Urianian academy was founded in 1833 (now a university). But
there is an alternative writing system used in Scollerin, an eastern
province separated out as an independent country in 1949, where the C
is represented by x. In highland Urianian there is no trace of the
aspirated labiovelar, so apparently it has merged into one of the
others (I have been assuming kw), but in the lowlands there are a
number of names containing 'ch', which looks encouraging. I'm not
sure which sound this represents though. Possibly Sampa x.

Just thought I'd mention this. Feel free to refrain from commenting
on it if you wish.

LEF

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