Basque 'sei'

[Larry Trask]

Max Wheeler writes:

> We shouldn't assume, without looking at the evidence, that the current
> distribution of laminal versus apical /s/ phonemes in Europe can be projected
> way back into the past.

Indeed.  Those who don't know it might like to look at the following article,
which in fact argues for a rather complex distribution of apical and laminal
sibilants in several European languages in the medieval period, including a
contrast between the two in some of them:

Martin Joos (1952), 'The medieval sibilants', Language 28: 222-231.  Reprinted
in M. Joos (ed.) (1957), Readings in Linguistics I, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, pp. 372-378.  In an appendix to the reprinted version, Joos
notes the existence of a laminal/apical contrast in Basque, and wonders if this
might represent a preservation of a former European areal feature.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk