Try pronouncing *Salvia forsskålei* in Latin. On 3 September 2014 18:13, Kipp McMichael <kimcmich@hotmail.com> wrote: > Peter, > I brought down the linguistic hammer on your confusion mainly in response > to your unnecessary swipe at American speech. My point concerned the > English phonetics of [k] and made no denial, or claims of any kind really, > about linguistic history. > The "reasons for different letters" are complex. Because english > orthography is not a reliable reflection of english phonetics (we could do > with both fewer letters, in the case of q/k and x for instance, and more > letters: th, ch, sh deserve their own single characters), it is dangerous > to assume every spelling difference represents a a current or historical > phonemic distinction. > The Roman alphabet was not the best fit for the Germanic languages many > linguists spoke themselves - much less the Slavik and other languages they > attempted to transliterate. In the case of the letters "k" and "q" however, > this distinction has nothing to do with pronunciation in any english > dialect. It is, rather, a reflection of modern (or at least "more recent") > orthographic conventions. > Take "quick" in modern english (UK and American): In Old English it was > "cwic"; in Dutch "kwik"; Old High German "quec". The choice of the > orthographic 'q' vs 'k' is/was not phonemically significant in *any* of > these languages. > You are free to continue to enunciate a distinction in your own idiolect, > of course. One's choice to innovate linguistic distinctions where none > exist should not be mistaken for good enunciation, however. > -|<ipp > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ > -- Ralph Carpenter 2 & 3 Stone Cottages Chilmington Green Great Chart Ashford Kent TN23 3DW 01233 637567 _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/