From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 36646
Date: 2005-03-05
>> Even the peculiar affrication of initial tr- is not uniqueI don't know anything about Mapudungu. The sequence tr- in
>> to English. The country of Chile was named after the
>> Araucanian (Mapundungu) word Trile. In Chilean Spanish, tr-
>> is affricated as in English (perhaps an effect of the
>> Araucanian substrate), and -rr- [also in Argentina, Perú] is
>> an alveolar fricative (much more friction than in English,
>> more like Czech <r^> but usually without vibration of the
>> tongue). In some Caribbean variants of Spanish, -r- becomes
>> /l/. In Puerto Rico ([pwelto Xiko]), /r/ = /l/ and /rr/ is
>> usually a uvular fricative (tending to voiceless).
>>
>> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
>> mcv@...
>>
>Before the rhotic thread peters out entirely...
>
>I have the impression that <tr> in Mapudungu spelling is used for a
>retroflex c^, which is distinct from a palatal c^ customarily written
><ch> (cf. Adelaar, _The Languages of the Andes_, p. 517). It's not,
>in a Mapudungu context, a combination of a dental stop and a rhotic.
>No essential difference between the use of initial <ch> and <tr> in
>Vietnamese "quoc-ngu." To European ears a retroflex affricate or
>stop at this articulatory point seems to have suggested a sequence of
>/t/ and /r/.