Re: Questions]

I said:
>
>>Japanese (and I think Spanish?) has done /h/ > /f/ (hence ha hi fu he
>>ho). This seems to be an especially logical change around rounded vowels
>>(so presumably it happened before Japanese /u/ unrounded).
>
To witch Yitzik replied:

> Alas, it was vice versa: /p/ > /f/ (which is not [f] but a [p\]) > /h/...
And then John says

> Japanese written "f" is actually [p\], the voiceless bilabial fricative
> The Spanish story is more complex: original Latin /h/ fell before the
> Romance languages differentiated, but Spanish changed Latin /f/ to
> a new /h/, possibly via an intermediate [p\], and this is the state that
> the orthography shows:  hablar < FABULARE.  However, /f/ remained
> unchanged before a consonant, including /w/, so fuego < FOCUS.  It took
> several centuries after this change happened for it to be recognized
> in writing, shortly after which the new /h/ went down the drain as well.
Oh. It seems I got it backwards on both counts... Well... I can still
see it happening, especially before rounded vowels. It makes so much
sense (with an intermediate [p\], of course). There *must* be a natlang
out there that does it. If there isn't, I'll loose all my faith in ALF,
elves, Lords and Ladies and oranges.

Tristan.