Re: A new phonemic distinction in Gzarondan

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