Re: [tied] Re: gwen etymology

Here's a brief intro to Old Indic phonetics.

j = "j"

c = "ch"

s' = "sh"

(all three slightly more palatal than their English counterparts)

s. = Sean Connery's "s" (t., d., n. are similarly retracted)

h = breathy-voiced "h" as often in "behind"

h. = voiceless "h"

m. = a nasalised glide, as Portuguese "sa~o"

v is traditionally pronounced "v", though it was apparently more "w"-like in Old Indic.

r. = syllabic r as in Czech "krk" 'neck' (traditionally replaced with "ri" in Sanskrit, but this is also a late convention).

Aspirated stops must be accompanied by a puff of breath, e.g. ch = "ch + h" and gh = "g + h".

The vowels e and o are always long, and short a should be rather schwa-like (like "u" in "butter").

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Odegard

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Sunday, December 03, 2000 11:38 PM

Subject: [tied] Re: gwen etymology

Piotr writes: >Hence also Sanskrit *j- (like English "j") and Slavic *z^ ("zh"). This is the place to ask for a clear answer to a question I've always had at the back of my mind. Should romanized Sanskrit and Hindi be pronounced, largely, as in English; this certainly seems correct for Hindi; the Js are as in English (usually of the 'French' variety), and word-terminal Es seem to obey the English rules for 'silent final E'. Yes, there are phonemes in these languages which are absent in English, and the aitches have to be regarded carefully. The diacritics are 100% opaque to native-speakers of English.