Re: the sound [a]

From: "Benct Philip Jonsson" <bpj@...>

> In more narrow notation it was probably /i & Q u/,
> if that makes you any happier.  Moreover short /Q/
> probably had an /A/ allophone.
>
> Anyway the status of *a vs. *o and their relations
> is problematic in PIE, which carries over into
> Germanic, Baltic and Slavic.  I have a neat solution,
> but won't divulge it at this point.
You're tempting me. I have my own theory on early PIE vocalism, but I won't
go into it much (/i @ a u/ - oops).

Another language I should've mentioned as lacking [a] is Uzbek. It has two
low vowels, but they're /&/ and /Q/. Uzbek is essentially Turkish with the
vowels of Farsi, by the way. Or did I say that already? I'd extend this to
Turkic languages in general - Turkish has /E/ and /A/, for instance - if [A]
and [a] weren't so close together.

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