Posted by Jeff on August 30, 2002 at 06:57:20:
In Reply to: Re: to Jeff ([g] & [h]) posted by Nazario on August 29, 2002 at 06:01:17:
Thank you for your help. I know Russian fairly well already (enough to read it, but I rarely attempt to listen to it or to write in it) and I learn vocabulary well. My Ukrainian textbooks do not present much vocabulary, so I've taken to reading original literature (Shevchenko) with a dictionary to acquire new words. My main problem lies with getting used to the free word order of Ukrainian and expressing myself in good idiomatic language--English and Ukrainian syntax represent wholly different ways of thinking and perceiving the world.
The information I have about Belarusan is conflicting. According to both <<ßçûêè ÐÔ è ñîñåäíèõ ãîñóäàðñòâ>> and Slavic Historical Phonology in Tabular Form, both [g] and [h] (actually a velar fricative, different from Ukrainian [h]) are phonemic in Belarusan. But the first reports that velar consonants are always soft before [e] and [i]--but spellings I've encountered such as ãýòà 'this' seem to contradict that. In fact, I'm at a loss to mention any Belarusan words that contain ãå, ã³, êå, ê³, õå, or õ³ except for loan words like ã³ñòîðèÿ. So, it is my guess that à is hard before all vowels, and (based on the last word cited) its value is [h] (but I only have a casual knowledge of Belarusan). By the way, both à and ¥ exist in diaspora publications--perhaps the Soviets did away with ¥ (which stood for [g] of course, and according to Slavic Historical Phonology in Tabular Form is restricted to "words borrowed from Polish and in certain clusters of native origin (from Church Slavic [g])."
What you described is an allophonic alternation (which may exist--I've never heard spoken Belarusan to know) and it is true that ancient Slavic possessed only one phoneme, [g]. Of the modern languages, both [g] and [h] exist in native words only in Slovak, Ukrainian, and Belarusan (if my book is to be believed). You and Serhii illustrated how [g] and [h] are distinct sounds in Ukrainian. Czech [g] only occurs in loan words.
On the topic of à and ¥, Dal`'s dictionary (1880-1882) reads: Г, . . . см. а. Буква г и в самом строгом произношении звучит двояко, тверже и мягче, отрывистее и протяжнее, подходя в первой крайности к букве к (пирог, порог), во второй к х (Бог, легко, ногти); а от Москвы на юг она переходит в придыханье, как немецкое h, которое есть и у прочих славян; хорошо бы принять и у нас (г с точкою) за такой придыхательный знак, часто необходимый. В сокращении Г. означает господин, госпожа, иногда город, также генерал, губернатор и пр. Гг., господа; М. Г., милостивый государь. [But the extra stroke points downward, making ¥ look much like Ï.] Furthermore, in a Ukrainian-American book from 1917, Äîëÿ Óêðà¿íè, ¥ appears, although it looks more like ² with an added stroke than what it does today.
I know Spanish well (I grew up near a Puerto Rican neighborhood) though I am not totally fluent. A good book for you would be Com licença. It is written in English and it teaches Brazilian Portuguese grammar for those who already know Spanish. But where to find it in Siberia I do not know (I saw it in a library in my old homework several years ago).
My questions deal with your discussion about Ukrainian clubs in Russia, language reform, and Ukrainian dialects (and surzhyk--a term I first encountered just a couple of days ago). It will probably be necessary to start a new topic, or else we can exchange email.
Cheers,
Jeffrey