Re: [tied] Dacian - /H/ -> seems not possible

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:

> On Mon, 08 Dec 2003 12:43:54 +0000, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...>
> wrote:
>
> >>
> >> The easiest interpretation is that the native population adopted
> >Latin as
> >> its first language (along with any Latin colonists immagrated

into

> >teh
> >> area), and after a while everybody forgot how to pronounce /h/,

as

> >any
> >> Latin speaker.
> >
> >You seem to imply that "dropping one's aitches" was a still active
> >principle for Latin speakers at the time, not a soundlaw that had
> >come and gone?
>
> It can also be a question of not *hearing* the aitches. Recalling

what I

> said some time ago about `Arafat and `Iraq,

That they both begin with `ayn? ;-)

>I don't think that
> `ayn-dropping in European languages can be described in terms of "a
> soundlaw that has come and gone".
>

Aha, the Romance-speaking peoples have entered a permanent aitch-less
condition. But the French did have Germanic aitch, for a short while.
How would that fit in?

Torsten