Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: Ross@foxearth.demon.co.uk (Ross Burgess)
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!yeshua.marcam.com!zip.eecs.umich.edu!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!demon!foxearth.demon.co.uk!Ross
Subject: Re: H and digraphs thereof
References: <CxvwI3.II9@inter.NL.net> <37t514$fq7@grivel.une.edu.au) <37uqhc$f2n@gordon.enea.se> <CxurM8.E3w@inter.NL.net> <bmoore-181094115410@bmoore.qualcomm.com>
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Date: Thu, 20 Oct 1994 21:59:35 +0000
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In article: <CxvwI3.II9@inter.NL.net>  mcv@inter.NL.net (Miguel Carrasquer) 
writes:
> 
> In article <bmoore-181094115410@bmoore.qualcomm.com>,
> Holoholona <bmoore@qualcomm.com> wrote:
> >In article <CxurM8.E3w@inter.NL.net>, mcv@inter.NL.net wrote:
> >
> >> I have no references on Galician.  I think that palatal n is written
> >> n-tilde, as in Spanish, so that would free up <nh> for the velar
> >> nasal.  But does that phoneme exist in Galician?  
> >
> >i understand that it does in welsh.  how is it spelled?  NH, of course,
> >although the voiceless L is spelled LL, not LH.
> 
> You must be confusing it with voiceless r, written <rh> in Welsh.
> 
The combination <nh> does in fact exist in Welsh, and can arise at the
start of words as a result of mutation (for instance "y tad" = "the
father", but "fy nhad" = "my father".

But <nh> is not really a digraph, unlike <ll>, <rh> etc which represent
single sounds and are treated for some purposes as single letters 
(for instance to determine the order of words in a dictionary).

The phonetic value of Welsh <nh> is just [n] + [h]. I understand that 
"fy nhad" is actually pronounced as if it were spelt "fyn had",
that is [vun ha:d], where the first part rhymes with English "bun",
but perhaps a Welsh speaker could clarify this.


           =====================================================
           Ross Burgess  (Purley, UK)  ross@foxearth.demon.co.uk
           =====================================================

