On Mon, 20 Mar 2006 20:30:16 +0100 (CET), Mate Kapović
<
mkapovic@...> wrote:
>I seem to remember on the other hand that there were claims that
>Egyptian [g] for the Classic Arabic [dz^] is an archaism not an
>innovation so these developments need not be the same for all the
>Arabic dialects...
I used to think Egyptian [g] was an archaism, but a
discussion about this on sci.lang many years ago left me
convinced that this is not the case. The Egyptian
pronunciation is an innovation, and a rare case of phonetic
"regression", so to speak. The source was obviously not the
affricate [dz^], but a Common Arabic palatal stop [g^] (~
Hung. <gy>), which usually developed into the [dz^] or [z^]
of most Arabic dialects, but in Egypt reverted to [g]. I
believe the original pronunciation as a palatal stop is
still current in some dialects of the Arabian peninsula.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...