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

Matt Pearson wrote:

> 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.
I think this change occurs generally because s is voiced to z, which then
weakens to h-. This is also really quite common in the indo-european family:
*sawelios --> Greek. helios and Welsh haul (sun, obviously).

Also, has nobody thought that in the development kw --> p that k assimilates
to the following labial element to become first pw (or bw and so on) and
then to p? That's what I always thought. Has this come up before (I'm new to
the list)

Dan (yl-ruil)