Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Questions]

From:Tristan <kesuari@...>
Date:Monday, March 10, 2003, 12:03
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.