Re: Betreft: Re: Initial clusters, was: Re: Russian orthography
| From: | Kenji Schwarz <schwarz@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, March 20, 2000, 20:30 |
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On Mon, 20 Mar 2000, BP Jonsson wrote:
> At 18:22 02.2.2000 +0100, John Cowan wrote:
> > > >Bella Coola
> > > >qqs 'eye'
> >
> >IIRC the only vowel in Bella Coola is a voiceless schwa, so at
> >the *phonological* level it's all consonants. At the auditory
> >level, it all sounds like whispering.
>
> How does one shout in Bella Coola, then? :-)
>
> Is it the received opinion that Bella Coola has no phonological vowels?
> That's the subject of an old Holy War among IEnists, as you may know.
No, I'm quite sure that Bella Coola definitely has at least three phonemic
vowels (/a i u/), and that only some words are "vowelless" (though those
that exist are, apparently, even without epenthetic vowels).
Kenji