Middle Chinese part 2

∅(Continued from previous post)

The Middle Chinese (MC) initial consonants *l *m *n are reflected in a pretty straightforward way in our set of languages. The only things to note are:
(1) The reflex of *l in Japanese and Korean may be written as <r> (in fact, these languages don't distinguish between [r] and [l])
(2) In Japanese, the nasals are denasalized (*m>b, *n>d) in older borrowings (the so-called "Go-on" readings)

Examples:
*l
六 'six'
Mandarin: liu4
Cantonese: luk6
Japanese: roku
Korean: ryuk
Vietnamese: lục

*m
明 'bright'
Mandarin: ming2
Cantonese: ming4
Japanese: myou / mei
Korean: myeong
Vietnamese: minh

*n
男 'male'
Mandarin: nan2
Cantonese: naam4
Japanese: nan / dan
Korean: nam
Vietnamese: nam

MC *m developed an allophone *mv in some environments which becomes /m/ in Mandarin and /v/ in Vietnamese, but is otherwise identical:
*mv
文 'writing'
Mandarin: wen2
Cantonese: man4
Japanese: mon / bun
Korean: mun
Vietnamese: văn

The MC initial *ŋ has more diverse reflexes. In Mandarin and Korean it is completely dropped, becoming null /∅/ (which may leave the word with an initial glide). In Cantonese it is sometimes preserved as /ŋ/ and sometimes dropped. Japanese reflects it as /g/.

*ŋ
五 'five', 語 'language'
Mandarin: wu3, yu3
Cantonese: ng5, jyu5
Japanese: go, go
Korean: o, eo
Vietnamese: ngũ, ngữ

The peculiar MC initial *r, whose phonetic realization is not totally clear, is reflected quite differently in each of these languages:
Mandarin: /r/
Cantonese: /j/
Japanese: /n/ (early borrowings - Go-on), /z/ (late borrowings - Kan-on)
Korean: /∅/
Vietnamese: /ɲ/
Example:
*r
人 'person'
Mandarin: ren2
Cantonese: jan4
Japanese: nin / zin
Korean: in
Vietnamese: nhân

Now to create an algorithm:

Firstly, to distinguish *mv we need one language from the set {M V} and one from the set {C J K}, since in the former it becomes like a glide and in the later like a nasal. Conveniently, this allows us to distinguish *r, since M and V have unique reflexes of this sound. If we chose V, we can also distinguish *ŋ, but if we chose M we need to chose J from our second set (since C and K may also reflect *ŋ as null).

Thus we see that the possible combinations are:

1. V+C
2. V+J
3. V+K
4. M+J

The algorithm to reconstruct the MC initial is as follows:

1. If M/V has initial /m/, /n/, /l/, /r/ or /ɲ/, the MC initial is *m, *n, *l, *r (respectively)
2. If M/V has initial /w/ or /v/ and C/J/K has initial /m/ or /b/, the MC initial is *mv

For combinations #1-3:

3. If V has initial /ŋ/, the MC initial is *ŋ

For combination #4:

3. If M has null initial /∅/ and J has initial /g/, the MC initial is *ŋ

One last point: Per the last post, combinations #1-3 allow reconstruction of MC final consonants uniquely (since V preserves them). Combination #4 allows slightly incomplete reconstruction (final *m and *n are indistinguishable, but the other finals can be reconstructed).

doof duif

I've been doing some reading lately on my heritage language, Litvish Yiddish. The "Standard Yiddish" variety which is found in literature and academia is pretty close to Litvish, but I found to my frustration that Litvish forms aren't totally derivable from Standard. The main difference is that Standard has /oi/ in many words where Litvish has /ei/, e.g. Standard oivn, Litvish eivn 'oven'. The catch is that sometimes both have /oi/, e.g. Standard=Litvish hoiz 'house'. The question for me was: how can I learn Litvish from a book that teaches Standard?

Now, it turns out that Litvish /oi/ is the reflex of one particular vowel (something like */uw/) in Proto-Yiddish, denoted by the number 45 in Yiddish linguistics. Cognate words in Middle High German (MHG) have /u:/, and in Modern German /au/, e.g. German haus 'house'. Unfortunately Modern German /au/ also results from MHG /ou/, cognate to Litvish /ei/ e.g. MHG ouge, Modern German Auge, Litvish eig (Standard oig). This does, at least, mean that if a word doesn't have /au/ in Modern German, it won't have /oi/ in Litvish, so for example Modern German Brot 'bread' is breit in Litvish (cf. Standard broit).

Eventually I discovered that that the key lies with Dutch. Dutch also originally had */u:/ at an early stage in words with Yiddish 45, which eventually developed into /œy/, spelled ui. This is the only source of the vowel ui in Dutch. Thus to determine the form of a Standard word in Litvish, replace any "oi" with "ei" unless its Dutch cognate has ui. For example, Standard toib may mean either 'deaf' or 'dove'. Its cognates in Dutch are doof 'deaf' and duif 'dove'. Thus in Litvish, the words are teib 'deaf' and toib 'dove'.

Incidentally, some Litvish Yiddish varieties have /eu/ in words where the Standard has oi and (conventional) Litvish has ei, for instance having breut for broit/breit 'bread'.

Here is a nice map of the distribution of the Yiddish words for 'deaf' and 'dove' in Litvish Yiddish.

Lateral stability

The letter 'sin' שֹ is known to have originally been pronounced distinctly from both 'shin' שׁ and 'samekh' ס. The letter 'sin' occurs precisely in words where Arabic has a /ʃ/ sound (like in ship), e.g. עשרה = Ar. /ʕaʃra/, showing that the common ancestor of Hebrew and Arabic had a distinct sound wherever this letter occurs. In fact, some obscure Semitic languages (the Modern South Arabian languages) have preserved this sound.

It's thought that sin was originally pronounced as a voiceless lateral fricative /ɬ/, like Welsh llwyd 'gray'. This sound is pronounced similarly to /l/ (as in land), but without vibration of the vocal cords, as if whispering, and often with a 'hushing' articulation. It's also often found in disordered speech. (I personally know someone who pronounces /ʃ/ as [ɬ] in English.) Some English loanwords show that sin had an l-like sound, like Balsam for Hebrew בשם and Chaldean for כשדי.

/ɬ/ (sin) and /s/ (samekh) must have begun merging quite early, since samekh is often used for sin in later books of the Tanakh. However Samaritans pronounce sin as /ʃ/, merging it with shin rather than samekh.

Why did the letter ש serve to indicate two consonants? The Hebrew alphabet was borrowed from the Phoenicians, for whom the sound /ɬ/ had already been lost, so the letter ש was adopted for this purpose. Actually other letters in the Hebrew alphabet also indicated multiple sounds, but that can wait for a different post...

open-minded

As a guilty user of the Israeli mivta, I naturally am not naturally disposed to know the correct way to niqqudize any particular word in Hebrew. I've found that historical Hebrew phonology has been very useful to understanding how the whole system works. Anyway, I felt like it might be interesting to talk about a particular aspect of niqqud that I've recently been thinking about. If this is boring, I apologize.

To simplify a complicated discussion, Hebrew went through a phase where vowels could be short or long*. At some point this length was lost, but by then long /a:/ was pronounced further back, as the vowel /ɔ/**. The Masoretes wrote /a/ with patah (אַ) and /ɔ/, reflecting older long /a:/, with qamatz (אָ).

A general rule in older Hebrew was that in open syllables*** /a:/ replaced /a/. Thus in open syllables patah is rarely found. However there are some interesting exceptions:

1) Words with hataf vowels, e.g. רַחֲמִים = ra-ha-mim, where the first syllable ra has a patah. It's thought that the hataf patah added in forms like this was a late addition: at a late stage shva nah under gutturals (like ה ע ח א) became a hataf vowel. This is also found in words with other vowels like צהֳרים, צהֳלה, יחֱרד

2) Segolates like נער, בעל, נחל (= na-hal where the first vowel is patah). The dating on these is, I believe, tricky. However it's known that originally segolates only had one vowel, e.g. *malk > melekh מלך, or similarly *nahl > nahal. Thus the first vowel was originally in a closed syllable, so this makes some sense.

3) Words like ירַחֵם = ye-ra-hem where the second vowel is a patah. In cases like this the guttural was originally doubled (ye-rah-hem), but gutturals lost gemination (= doubling) at a late stage. Thus we see in other piel verbs like ידבּר there is a dagesh in the second root letter because it was geminate (ye-dab-ber)

Are there any other cases that I have missed? Please let me know if you're aware of any. Also, I apologize for the ad-hoc transcription; I figure that it does not distract from my point, but if it's distracting I can use something more precise.


* This is roughly comparable to the difference between the vowel in British lot versus start, where the second is more drawn-out.
**This is the vowel in the word caught, for speakers who pronounce it differently than the word cot.
***An open syllable ends in a consonant, while a closed syllable ends in a vowel. Thus הברה Ha-va-ra has three open syllables while יד yad has one closed syllable.

Main source: Phonology and Morphology of Biblical Hebrew by Joshua Blau (2010)

Liturgical Phonology

There's a lot of talk that gets tossed around about protecting our mesorah, but <ר> still gets pronounced as /ɹ/. I think this is in many ways an inevitable thing. As much as people might have you believe that proper pronunciation is a halachic issue, it seems that communities have adapted their havarah to their linguistic framework — consider the Ashkenazic loss of pharyngeals.

In some ways the evolution of liturgical pronuciation seems to parallel language loss over generations. With language loss in the US, a common situation is that the first generation speaks the language fluently, the second passively and with somewhat sub-par pronunciation, and the third in a rudimentary fashion, if at all. Similarly it seems that Hebrew pronunciation has gradually shifted in the US to accommodate English phonology, both in consonants (/r/ in particular) and in vowel quality (note especially the fronting and dipthongization of /o/).

What has puzzled me is that this does not seem to be absolute. Jews are known for being able to pronounce /x/, and among religious (or at least somewhat motivated) Jews this does not seem to be disappearing. I can see a few possible explanations:

(1) This sound is used in a few English words ("Bach", "loch", "ugh", "Hannukah"), although this seems tenuous.

(2) Unlike /r/ or /o/, /x/ must be preserved to avoid collapsing minimal pairs (e.g. כל/חול, לכם/להם). This seems more likely, although the historical loss of pharyngeals precisely lead to such a collapse. (By the way, I am curious about how successful the younger generation of sfaradim in America is at pronouncing such phonemes. Feel free to let me know.)

(3) Perhaps /x/ sounds different enough from whatever sound Americans might collapse it into (/h/ or /k/) that this process is blocked.

I also wonder if there are other examples, in Hebrew or in other liturgical languages, of phonemes being preserved that are not present in the local spoken language. The only other possible example I can think of off the top of my head is the /œ/ of Temani Hebrew (although maybe some spoken Arabic dialect had that sound; again, let me know if I am wrong).

At some point in time I might research this topic and write a more conclusive post.