Re: The Monovocalic PIE Myth (was Germans have no /w/, ...)

On Jun 12, 2004, at 12:19 AM, william drewery wrote:
>>> Arabic is a bit odd too. It has 'b', but no 'p'
>>
>> For a similar reason to Japanese's limitation on
>> /p/, sound changes,
>> specifically /p/ -> /f/
>
> Interesting. Did tis happen in Spanish as well?
>                                          Travis
Based on comparative evidence from Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), it looks
like Spanish merged /b/ and /v/ into one phoneme.
I think Basque has been blamed for this, also for Spanish's
5-vowelness, and general lack of independent voiced fricatives (i.e.
not allophones).


-Stephen (Steg)
  "en catalañazor / perdió almanzor / el atambor"