Re: Japanese phonemes (was Re: The Monovocalic PIE Myth (wasGermans have no /w/, ...))

Nik Taylor wrote:

>Danny Wier wrote:
>
>
>>From: "Nik Taylor" <yonjuuni@...>
>>
>>
>>
>>>The reason is that there's no voiced /h/, and voiced /h/ is very rare
>>>anyways.  "f" simply DOES NOT EXIST in Japanese on a PHONEMIC level.
>>>
>>>
>>It doesn't really exist on a phonetic level either; it's actually [P] (IPA
>>phi), which makes me think more of the sound of [W] than [f].
>>
>>
>
>Really?  Sounds very /f/-like to me.  Of course, my dialect doesn't have
>[W], perhaps if mine did, I'd think of "wh" as being closer than "f",
>but for [W]-less dialects, I think /f/ is the closest English sound to
>it.
>
>
Yeah... IIUC Maori has /f/ spelt as <wh> because when the orthography
was made, the dominant dialect of Maori had /f/ pronounced as [P] and
New Zealand English hadn't lost /W/ at the time. Now the dominant
dialect has /f/ as [f] and NZE /W/ > /w/. Or so I understand.

--
Tristan.