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Re: A new phonemic distinction in Gzarondan

From:Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
Date:Friday, October 15, 2004, 19:29
Quoting Philippe Caquant <herodote92@...>:

> --- Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> skrev: > > Quoting "Adrian Morgan (aka Flesh-eating Dragon)" > > <dragon@...>: > > > > > Alternatively, I could do away with /h/ (but how > > many natural > > > languages don't have /h/ ?) > > > > French, Greek and Russian come to mind; they don't > > have [h] at all. > > I'm not so sure for French. I'm thinking for ex about > interjections, like: hé! ho ! hep ! Perhaps the h is > not strong, but it seems to exist, at least for some > speakers.
As Mach said, sounds found in interjections doesn´t necessarily belong in the language´s phonological system.
> And Alsacians will probably pronounce the h > too, in words like "hareng" - and yet they are French > (until next German invasion, of course).
But they won´t then be speaking standard French.
> Ancient Greek had apparently an h, since it was > written above the initial vowel (we call this an > 'esprit rude' in French). Ex: the article 'ho' (the, > masc.), written o with this sign on it.
Indeedy. But, as I think was tolerably obvious, I was refering to Modern Greek. A Greek girl I know mentioned [h] as the German consonant it had cost her the most trouble to master. Andreas