Re: Betreft: Re: k(w)->p

Kenji Schwarz wrote:

>> - A (common) change that surprises me is [s] --> [h].
>>   That sounds weird to me
>
>It seems endemic in North Asia -- most of the languages I "work" with (ok,
>and play with) show this cropping up with some frequency.  I don't know if
>it's common elsewhere, maybe on acoustic grounds, or if it's some areal
>peculiarity.
It's not an areal peculiarity, but highly common.  I've run across it
in some Central Asian languages (like Even), in Caribbean dialects of
Spanish, in Polynesian languages (proto-Polynesian */s/ became /h/
in Hawaiian, for example), and in some Central American languages.
Perhaps others as well that I don't remember.

Matt.