Re: digraphs

--- "T. A. McLeay" <conlang@...> wrote:

> Mark J. Reed wrote:
>
> > Somewhat OT, "Kazakhstan" is an interesting case,
> really.  The native form
> > of the name has /q/ for both "k" sounds, but in
> Russian, which is the
> > version borrowed into English, the first became
> /k/ and the second /x/.   I
> > find that odd; I know that Russian has words with
> initial /x/ (and medial
> > /k/, for that matter), so I wonder why the two
> sounds got different
> > treatments.
>
> In Kazakh, /k/ and /g/ each have three allophones:
>
>             /k/    /g/     /k/  /g/
>             Front words    Back words
>   Initial    k      g       q    R
>   Medial     k      G       X    R
>
> (The distribution is not symmetrical.)
>
> So borrowing "Kazakh" from Kazakh /kazak/ [qazaX] to
> Russian /kazax/ is
> really quite straightforward, as long as you know
> the Kk. allophony.
>
> --
> Tristan.
>

You're right.
When I was learning Kazakh in Kazakhstan, my teachers
(themselves Kazakhs) analysed both instances as /q/.
But /q/ only exists in back ("fat", as they call it)
words, becoming /k/ in front ("thin") words.
Initially and finally, this is the case, but medially
(as in "Kazakhstan", for example) a /q/ will tend to
be spoken as /X/.  I hadn't noticed that until you
mentioned it, but I've been making that /q/-/X/ shift
myself for several years now.

Geoff

=====

One by one the penguins are stealing my sanity
-Graffitum spotted on a bridge in England


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