[gothic-l] Re: Gaut, Gapt

[Francisc Czobor]

Hi Dirk,

--- In gothic-l at y..., dirk at s... wrote:
> ...
> Hello Andreas,
>
> that is very interesting. In Russian (probably from Greek) the Latin
> au- normally becomes av- (i.e. pronounced like af-). Expamples
include
>  au-thor which is in Russian av-tor, Au-tomat, which is in Russian
> av-tomat, etc.. If this is derived from Greek, which I think is
likly,
> than Gaft might be seen as a Greek  form for Gaut.
>
> best regards
> Dirk

The explanation is very simple. In Byzantine and modern Greek, the
alpha-upsilon diphthong (pronounced [au] in Old Greek) is pronounced
[av], or [af] before soundless consonants. Thus, a today's Greek would
read the "Gaut" (gamma-alpha-upsilon-tau) as [gaft].

Francisc


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