Re: [tied] Thracian Sounds

01-09-03 00:34, Richard Wordingham wrote:

> I'll give you a modern example, then. The Thai consonant phoneme
> inventory is a superset of the Greek inventory, except that Thai /ng/
> does not have a stop allophone and Thai does not have /z/. Thais can
> mishear English [þ] as /s/; they do not hear it as /tH/, /t/ or /f/. The
> only systematic distortion I can think of might be caused by the
> existence of hushed affricates /tS/, /tSH/, but I think that that
> strengthens rather than weakens my argument.

It is, however, weakened by the fact that Iranian [þ] is rather
consistently represented as Greek <tH> (Mithradates, Parthamaspates,
Pissuthnes [OPer. pis^is^yaoþna-], etc.), just like [f] and [x] become
Gk. <pH>, <kH> (fravartis^ > Phraortes, haxa:manis^ > akHaimene:s
[Achaemenes]). An apparent exception is OPer. þatagus^ --> Sattagydia,
but the Sattagydians were not Old Persian speakers and the Greeks may
well have taken the name from a different Iranian dialect (OPer. þ < *k^
corresponds to /s/ in Avestan, Median, etc. and I believe þatagu- <
*k^m.to-gWu- '[the country of] a hundred cows'); cf. Babyl.
sa-at-ta-gu-u, Elam. satakus^.

Piotr