German "ch" (was: Con-Alphabets & Real Languages)

From: "Philip Newton"

> laokou wrote:
> > (German, I believe, now also has the same three-way distinction for
> > "ch").
> Not quite. Originally, German <ch> is [c-cedilla] or [x] or (especially
> preceding <s>) [k]. Now, it's also got [tS] and [S] in loan words from
> English and French (e.g. checken, Chaussee). So we've got at least a
> five-way distinction there.
I should have qualified that as *initial* "ch" in German. [k] for the Greek
loans (Character, Chaos), [S] for the French (Chance, Chose), and [tS] for
the English (Chips, checken) (and Spanish? (Chile)). But even then, I'm not
quite right. [C] occurs in "Chemie" and its derivatives, "China" and its
derivatives, and "Chirurgie" and its derivatives. At first blush, I thought
"i" and "e" were evoking palatalization (and I still imagine that's part of
what's going on), but "Chef", "Chiffre", and "Chicorée" are marked with [S].
Dunno what that's about. Anyway, a four-way split. [x], to the best of my
knowledge, does not occur initially.

Didn't know about "schick" (other than the razor company). Interesting.
Maybe that influenced or was influenced by....

> > (Cf. Hungarian, where "chic" is imported as "sikkes" [SIkES], "sikk"
> > plus an adjectival ending "-es".
> Not [SIk:ES]? AFAIK, double consonants are distinguished from single
> ones phonemically.
Yes. Brain flatulence.

Kou

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