--- In cybalist@..., tgpedersen@... wrote:
>
> > Interestingly, English seems to be the sole IE language to have
> preserved the "original" PIE pronunciation of *w in prevocalic
> positions.
> >
> > Piotr
>
> Jutland Danish ("jysk") south of the Limfjord has v before front
> vowels, w before back vowels. North of the Limfjord it's w-
> everywhere.
>
>
And (I've mentioned it on some other occasion) I heard at some time
in Holland a rap record on the radio by some Surinams person. He
pronounced "verwacht" (expected) with a w- as in English as opposed
to the standard ABN Dutch pronounciation of (written) w as v-. A
Dutch person explained to me that that was a Surinams accent. So I
wondered if Dutch in colonial times had a system f (unvoiced)/ v
(voiced)/ w (as in English) which would seem much less "cramped" that
the present system where w is pronounced v-
As a bonus, if we assume voicing of initial fricatives in
Dutch/German, we would get s-/f-/T- -> z-/v-/D- with further D -> d,
explaining thus the different treatment of initial thorn in Dutch and
German (T -> (D ->) d) versus Friesian and the Scandinavian languages
(T -> t).
Torsten