Re: Dsh (Orcan) Phonology, and a preview of the grammar

On Tue, 25 Apr 2000, Marcus Smith wrote:

> At 4/25/00 12:36 PM +0200, you wrote:
> >Well, not that unusual, for instance the /g/ in Japanese is (still) often
> >nasalised (except at the beginning of words) (I was told it's disappearing,
> >but I heard it more than once in a Japanese anime,so I think it's not that
> >dead), so the Rooma-ji <g> often stands for [N] too :)) .
>
> One of my Japanese TA's insisted that we pronounce /g/ as [N], because she
> couldn't tell the difference between our k's and g's.  None of the Japanese I
> have spoken to outside of class have objected or even commented on that
> pronunciation, even when they mentioned others.  So it seems to be quite
> alive.
From what I've read, and from what I heard when I lived there many years
back, the [N] pronunciation of non-initial /g/ is primarily a regional
dialect marker, for the Tokyo region.  I don't know if it was more
widespread previously, but at least nowadays, it seems to be strongly
associated with Edokkyo identity.

Kenji