Dutch labiodental fricatives [was: Re: *oy vey*]

At 2:13 PM -0400 04/10/02, Andreas Johansson wrote:
>Maarten Beek wrote:
>>  > Van: Danny Wier
>>>
>>>  >Nederlands/Dutch is essntiallij a Low Germanic language with
>>>  that funkij <
>>>
>>>  Or better yet, _vunkij_ since Dutch voices initial fricatives.
>>
>>Wat een vlauwekul... I mean, flauwekul! Voiced and voiceless initial
>>fricatives are phonemically distinct, as can be seen by looking at these
>>minimal pairs in Dutch:
>>
>>fee (fairy) - vee (cattle)
>
>That _vee_ is suspiciously similar to English "fee", which's Swedish cognate
>_fä_ means "livestock".
It's the same word. "Pecuniary" is derived from the same PIE root as
well. Something about paying in cattle ...

>Has Dutch been vary evil against labiodental
>fricatives during some period of it's history?
As I understand it, Proto-Germanic had no voicing contrast in
fricatives. Voicing occured in each daughter language under slightly
different conditions.  In some varieties of Dutch, *f was voiced
initially and medially, while in others it wasn't (there may also
have been a Frisian substrate influence on the northern dialects
which either nipped voicing in the bud, or prevented it from
occurring it at all). Dutch spelling reflects a mixed dialect
situation.

Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga                  Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

Man deth swa he byth thonne he mot swa he wile.
'A man does as he is when he can do what he wants.'

- Old English Proverb

Reply