Re: new book on the spread of IE

On Feb 15, 10:31 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Feb 15, 10:34 am, ekk...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Case in example. The arrival of voiceless labio-dental fricative /f/
to Chinese dialects is ubiqutous (this even happened in Vietnamese,
which is not exactly a Chinese dialect.)

It isn't the least bit a Chinese dialect.

I think I know more about Vietnamese and its relationship to Chinese
than you.

When you are missing some front upper teeth, you can't really make
the /f/ sound.

What do "canines or lateral incisors" have to do with [f]?

Oh please.

How does tooth removal in some individuals affect an entire language
family?

It's not *some*. Not too long ago it was nearly universal in Taiwan's
aborigine groups. Same practice is observed all over Austronesian
civilization areas. Tooth extraction in Southeast Asia has already
been discussed more than half a century ago by people like Ling Shun-
Sheng (凌純聲).

-- Ekki
.