lots of romance languages have exactly that characteristic, though (maybe other languages, too). see C and G in italian. "ci" is simply pronounced "correctly" as "chi".
That's true but isn't exactly the same thing. "Irregularly" pronounced combinations are still valid combinations. I'd say the universal example for languages that are written in Latin alphabet or a variation thereof would be the (notorious) 'fgsfds.' It's an invalid combination because there is _no_ pronunciation at all--except 'figgis-fiddis' which is a really recent, and ground-breaking, invention ;-)
With Japanese syllabaries one cannot produce unpronounceable sequences. Nonsense, yes, but nothing that cannot be uttered.
--On Friday, September 11, 2009 15:53 -0400 Anthony Sorace <[email protected]> wrote:
lots of romance languages have exactly that characteristic, though (maybe other languages, too). see C and G in italian. "ci" is simply pronounced "correctly" as "chi".
