Dahl's Law

Dahl's Law is a sound rule of Northeast Bantu languages, a case of voicing dissimilation. In the history of these languages, a voiceless stop, such as /p t k/, became voiced (/b d ɡ/) when immediately followed by a syllable with another voiceless stop. So, for example, Nyamwezi has -datu "three" where Swahili, a Bantu language which did not undergo Dahl's Law, has -tatu, and Shambala has mgate "bread" where Swahili has mkate. Dahl's Law is the reason for the name Gikuyu, when the language prefix normally found in that language is ki-.

The law was named in 1903 by Carl Meinhof, after the missionary Edmund Dahl who had discovered it.

Dahl's Law is often portrayed as the African equivalent of Grassmann's Law in Indo-European languages. However, Grassman's Law (which is aspiration, not voicing, dissimilation) has taken place in the Bantu language Makhuwa, where it is called Katupha's Law.

This phonetics article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.v · Categories: Phonetics stubs Historical linguistics Sound laws Bantu languages Northeast Bantu languages Wikimedia Foundation. 2010. Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая? Dahl's Foods Dahl's toad-headed turtle Look at other dictionaries: Grassmann's law — For Grassmann s law in color theory, see Grassmann s law (optics). Grassmann s law, named after its discoverer Hermann Grassmann, is a dissimilatory phonological process in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit which states that if an aspirated consonant is …   Wikipedia Steve Dahl — Infobox Radio Presenter name = Steve Dahl alias = imagesize = 250px caption = birthname = birthdate = birth date and age|mf=yes|1954|11|20 birthplace = Pasadena, California, USA deathdate = deathplace = show = The Steve Dahl Show station = WJMK,… …   Wikipedia Carl Dahl — This article is about the Danish artist. For the Norwegian politician, see Carl Adolph Dahl Carl Dahl Niels Carl Michaelius (Michael) Flindt Dahl, usually known as Carl Dahl, (24 March 1812, Faaborg – 7 April 1865, Frederiksberg) was a Danish… …   Wikipedia Crystal Dahl — is a Canadian actress, perhaps best known for her role as Crystal Smith in the drama comedy television series Dead Like Me, and the subsequent film Dead Like Me: Life After Death. She was born in New Westminster, British Columbia at the Royal… …   Wikipedia André Oktay Dahl — (born 7 July, 1975 in Lørenskog) is a Norwegian politician representing the Conservative Party. He is currently a representative of Akershus in the Storting and was first elected in 2005. He was a reserve candidate in the two previous periods,… …   Wikipedia Bantu languages — Bantu Geographic distribution: Subsaharan Africa, mostly Southern Hemisphere Linguistic classification: Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Bantoid …   Wikipedia Northeast Bantu languages — Northeast Bantu Northeast Savanna Bantu Geographic distribution: Tanzania, Kenya Linguistic classification: Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo …   Wikipedia Democracy — For other uses, see Democracy (disambiguation) and Democratic Party (disambiguation). A woman casts her vote in the second round of the French presidential election of 2007 …   Wikipedia List of Tales of the Unexpected episodes — This is a list of episodes of the British drama series, Tales of the Unexpected. Contents 1 Series one 2 Series two 3 Series three 4 Series four …   Wikipedia State — A state is a political association with effective sovereignty over a geographic area and representing a population. These may be nation states, sub national states or multinational states. A state usually includes the set of institutions that… …   Wikipedia 18+ © Academic, 2000-2024 Contact us: Technical Support, Advertising Dictionaries export, created on PHP, Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, MODx. Mark and share Search through all dictionaries Translate… Search Internet Share the article and excerpts Direct link … Do a right-click on the link above and select “Copy Link”