Re: You meet the oddest people on the Internet

From: "Paul Bennett" <paul-bennett@...>

> I just got called an anti-Semite for pointing out the difference in German
> between the ich-laut /C/ and ach-laut /x/, and that they're not both /x/.
>
> Dan/Steg/Yitzik/anyone: WTF?
>
> Seriously. How in the hell was that anti-Semitic?
I've been sitting here for nearly half an hour trying to see the connection,
and still I have failed. I think the person who called you that universal
insult is either deluded or had a run-in with a real anti-Semite earlier
today.

He or she is also wrong; actually Common Germanic *h after a vowel has two
allophones in German, [x] after back vowels, and [C] after front vowels
(inc. Umlauts) and consonants. Dutch (and maybe the Low German dialects)
don't have that allophony, I don't think.

I still wonder why, however, <ch> is [C] after consonants, as in _dorch_
"through" [dO@C].

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