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Subject: Re: palatalization and nasal sounds
From: goddard
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 08:20:32 GMT
References: 1, 2

> The Japanese language (yamato kotoba) always had what you describe as "nasal and platal sounds" but did not have specfic means to write them down. For example, "nippon" was pronounced as such but it was written as 日本, because back in those days there was no way to write "nippon" as actually pronounced, as a result of which the pronunciation of "nihon" came about.

That's strange. I've read that the original Japanese language lacked ん and palatal sounds like きょぎょひょりょ etc., and was strictly a consonant-vowel language. Maybe I'm wrong. I thought all of that was imported with kanji.


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