Re: Revised Eastern Vowel Orthography

On Mon, 24 May 1999, Brian Betty wrote:

> Andrew Smith wrote, "I'm not sure if /P/ here is p or pf or something else.
>  NZMaori has the letters p and wh, with wh pronounced /f/ nearly
> universally.  Rarotongan Maori uses f for this letter."
>
> I thought that [wh] was the same letter which in IPA is written as Gk. phi,
> which I guess is what was meant by P. As in the Japanese 'f', which is made
> bilabially (like an F pronounced with lips instead of upper teeth and lower
> lips) - the Japanese 'f' is the sound Japanese h becomes before /u/.
>
> The voiced equivalent of phi is written with Gk. be:ta in IPA.
>
> Has the Maori P > f in modern speech?
>
Mostly.  Some dialects have h, w, hw for the wh sound, but the dictionary
I refer to discribes it as 'usually f'.  This is probably due to its
near-universal decline into a second language over 150 years of contact
with English speakers.  I believe the original pronunciation for wh was
/P/ but I haven't seen much evidence for it.

- andrew.

Andrew Smith, Intheologus                       hobbit@earthlight.co.nz

"Orcs eat Hummers."
                        - Old Orc Saying.