Re: Too Many Too Little Possible Roots!!!

On Fri, 20 Nov 1998, Mathias M. Lassailly wrote:

> Matt wrote :
>
> > Malagasy orthography is pretty close to being perfectly phonemic - except
> > for the peculiarity that /i/ is spelled "y" at the ends of words and "i"
> > everywhere else.  To the best of my knowledge, the spelling conventions
> > were established by the 19th century English and French missionaries.
> > The use of "y" at the ends of words is generally attributed to English
> > influence.  Why /u/ is spelled "o" and /dz/ is spelled "j" I don't know.
>
> I can remember I was taught years ago in my language university in Paris that
> *o* was /u/ and *dz* was /j/ because Malgache orthography was fixed by
> Portuguese missionnaries having settled on the island before English and
> French.
But in Portuguese orthography, "j" is /Z/, not /dz/.  Is "o" pronounced /u/
in Portuguese?

Matt.