• Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyzM
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    11 hours ago

    General pattern seems to be:

    • labial and/or velar continuant (approximant or fricative) or [h]
    • open and/or rounded vowel
    • labial and/or velar continuant or a close back rounded vowel

    Exceptions are relatively easy to explain:

    • What’s being transliterated as Farsi “gh” is likely “غ”. It’s [ɢ]~[ɣ]. It is not an actual exception.
    • Russian used to have a [ɣ] sound, but it got merged into /g/. (Note this explains why some older loanwords with /h/ get neared to /g/, [h] and [ɣ] sound somewhat similar.)
    • Spanish gu- is [gʷ], a sound Romance languages often use as replacement for [w], after Latin [w] became [v]. Spanish did redevelop the sound but odds are the onomatopoeia is older.