Re: [tied] Other IE language with /w/

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Andrew Jarrette <anjarrette@...>
wrote:

>
>
>
> Grzegorz Jagodzinski <grzegorj2000@...> wrote:
>
>
> 1) The Sorbian languages have preserved initial w- in most

positions.

> Anyway, w- remains [w] in Lower Sorbian except when before o, u in

native

> words (where it changed into [h]).
>
>
>
> -- Thank you for informing me. That is very interesting, Slavic

languages that have preserved initial /w/. Pardon my ignorance, but
in which countries are these languages spoken? Is it Poland or the
Czech republic
, as I suspect?

>

Southeast Germany, around the city of Cottbus (Chosebuz). It is the
last remains of the number of Slavic languages that were spoken on a
territory roughly corresponding to the former German Democratic
Republic, before it was turned into a Frontier by the Germans and
and colonised.

> 2) Standard Dutch (I mean the standard variant which is being

described in

> teach-yourself books etc.) changed the bilabial approximant /w/

(in anlaut)

> into the labio-dental approximant, so the change is less than in

most other

> IE languages.
>

I've heard a rapper from Suriname use plain /w/ for written
Dutch /w/. I suspected this was from an earlier Dutch pronunciation,
but Miguel disputes that Dutch was spoken in Suriname until recently.



Torsten