--- In
qalam@yahoogroups.com, John Cowan <cowan@...> wrote:
> What I've always wondered about is the z-digraphs of Central Europe.
I don't know it, but I suppose some influence from early medieval
German where we have instances of <cz> and <sz> in order to indicate
the pronunciation of <z>: <cz> indicates an instance of <z> pronounced
like <c>, that is, [ts], and <sz> indicates an instance of <z>
pronounced similar to <s>, that is [s].
I suppose that much of Central Europe was christianized by Germans, so
it wouldn't be so strange that they'd employ German spelling
conventions in the transcription of these languages.
gry@...:
j. 'mach' wust