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From: scc@reston.icl.com (Stephen Carlson)
Subject: Re: H and digraphs thereof
Message-ID: <Cy8E63.J18@reston.icl.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 13:44:27 GMT
References: <CxyyKF.D5n@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> <CxzBt8.4J2@inter.NL.net>
Organization: International Computers Limited, Reston, Virginia, USA
Lines: 27

In article <CxzBt8.4J2@inter.NL.net> mcv@inter.NL.net (Miguel Carrasquer) writes:
>In article <CxyyKF.D5n@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>,
>Ivan A Derzhanski <iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>>But _nh_ in Welsh is a voiceless _n_, not palatal or velar.  Yes, _ll_
>>is inconsistent.  (That's why JRR Tolkien uses _lh_ in his romanisation
>>for the Welsh-influenced Sindarin.)
>
>Well, so much for "Teach Yourself Welsh".  The Pronunciation chapter
>is completely silent on NH.  Then I figured it might be a mutation,
>and indeed, the nasal mutation of P T and C gives MH, NH and NGH.
>They (Bowen and Rhys-Jones) say: "If the pronunciation of NGH is found
>difficult, practise the English phrase `hung halibut'."  Red herring!
>Well, so Welsh has unvoiced r, l (fricative), m, n and [N]...

Interestingly enough, reconstructed Old Chinese (Zhou Dynasty, c. 1000 BCE)
has all these voiceless consonants.  Most scholars in this area use F.K.Li's
notation of *hr-, *hl-, *hm-, *hn-, and *hng-.  Basically, these consonants
changed into Middle Chinese th- (for *hr-, *hl-, and *hn-) and x- (for *hm-
and *hng-).  Baxter also reconstructs a voiceless j-, *hj-, giving rise to
MC sy-.

Stephen Carlson
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