[alt-photo] Re: voiced fricatives

[Judy Seigel]

On Tue, 12 Jan 2010, Loris Medici wrote:

> ....  according to what I hear around, I
> would pronounce the g in argyros in the voiced velar fricative form.

It's been a long day & I doubt I could make it across the room to the big 
dictionary to check "voiced velar fricative"  (but you knew that, didn't 
you Loris !).  However, for what it's worth, in English, the "y" after the 
"g" makes the g soft, as in gyroscope, tho not, for instance, in 
gynecology (if you want an argument). Tho that could be because it's the 
first letter in the word, which can break the rule.

On the 3rd hand, the English (as in denizens of England) take all sorts of 
liberties with the mother tongue, with all sorts of accents and strange 
spellings --- Americans, however, tend to admire that and (some of them) 
even try to "pass."

But PS:  the little dictionary I have at hand says "fricative" is the 
sound made by the "friction of breath in a narrow opening." (No comment.)

J.