Possible phonological changes (was: Rate of change)

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

On Fri, 22 Jun 2001 16:27:42 +0200, "Eduard Selleslagh" <edsel at glo.be>
wrote:

>As to unusual sound correspondences, isn't there a Sumerian rustic dialect that
>uses m and S instead of g and n? I seem to remember something like that from
>Meillet. Can anyone tell me more about that?

The reference is probably to Emesal, a literary dialect of Sumerian
which is sometimes considered a "woman's language" (because in the
texts it's mainly used to render women's speech), although it may well
be a regional or evolved dialect of standard Sumerian [Emegir] (cf.
the use of Prakrits by female characters in Sanskrit drama).

Emesal, besides other phonetical and lexical (but few grammatical)
characteristics,  uses <m> for Sumerian <g>, but only when this stands
for *g~, a sound usually reconstructed as /Nw/ (labialized velar
nasal).    It is possible that the spelling <m>, in Akkadian fashion,
represents /w/.  The correspondence Emegir <n> ~ Emesal <s^> occurs
only in a few words (normally <n> = <n>), and may be connected with
the alternation <n> ~ <l> that is otherwise found in Sunerian.  The
spelling <s^>, as in Akkadian, might then represent some kind of
lateral (fricative or maybe palatalized).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl