thy thigh etc.

[Brent J. Ermlick]

On Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 11:22:39AM +0200, Stefan Georg wrote:
> Maybe. But that's an increased tendency to be aware of foreign
> phonemes, an increased openness for the outside world, and certainly
> an increase which increases with education. Whatever this means for a
> phoneme system.

I've noticed a slight tendency in this direction in American
English. In the fifties I don't recall any American radio or TV
announcer using the phoneme /x/ in any word. The Scottish word
"loch" was pronounced with a definite /k/.

While /k/ is still the majority pronunciation, sometime afterwards
(starting in the 70's?) I started to hear an occasional announcer
use /x/ in this word as well as others.

I think that this is also "an increased openness for the outside
world" rather than a change in the phoneme system.

--
Brent J. Ermlick		Veritas liberabit uos
brent at bermls.oau.org