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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: "V" in East Asian Languages
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Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 22:28:35 GMT
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In article <Pine.SUN.3.92.960403040333.24411A-100000@access2.digex.net>,
Paul O Bartlett  <pobart@access.digex.net> wrote:
>    Recently I came across an interesting auxiliary language named
>Frater, published in Vietnam in the 1950s.  Although its vocabulary base
>is largely Greco-Latin, its grammar is rather non-European, and the
>author stated that one of his design goals was to accommodate the "needs
>of Chinese, Japanese and other non-Aryan" speech groups.
>
>    In its phonology, Frater has a number of unvoiced/voiced consonant
>pairs, such as /p/&/b/ and /t/&/d/.  However, there is /f/ but no /v/.  I
>am not familiar with the phonologies of East Asian languages, and I was
>wondering if anyone knows whether /v/ tends to be absent from major East
>Asian tongues.
>
>    Please Cc: any replies to me as well as posting them, because my news
>feed seem to have become somewhat unreliable lately.  Thanks.

	Fei Li's interesting comments notwithstanding, I believe the
Wu dialects (including Shanghainese) of Chinese are the only ones
generally recognise to include [v] or [B] in their phonetic inventory
(though these sounds might also be present in Hakka or Gan).

	[v] is certainly absent from Korean and Japanese, where it 
is replaced by /p/ (phonetically, [p] or [b]) and /b/, respectively,
in foreign words (e.g. K. /piethunam/, J. /bietonamu/* "Vietnam").

	I'm not sure about other languages.  Modern Mongolian might
have [v] (though Classical doesn't), as might some modern Tungusic
languages (though Classical Manchu doesn't).




-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
