Re: CONLANG Digest - 8 May

Christophe Grandsire wrote:

> What I find strange is that
> you have no problem with affricates like /tS/ and /dZ/, but you cannot
> handle affricates like /ts/ and /dz/ (or even /gz/ like Xena /Zina/ that we
> pronounce in French /gzena/). Do you have an explanation for that?
I don't know what explanation there could be in principle.  English words
don't begin with /ts/ and do begin with /tS/, and there's an end of it;
such a rule tends to maintain itself despite new borrowings like "tsetse" /sitsi/,
for example....

In the specific case of "Tsar", I think /zar/ is accounted for by the
bizarre older spelling "Czar", which is (at least in the U.S.) the only
one used in metaphorical uses like "drug czar" (a government official
with responsibilities for illegal drugs transcending all government
departments).

Whoever made up "Czar" must have been a German.

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