Farfalla

[Fredrik]

> I remember it was you, Fredrik, who pointed out that the word has a 
> long [i:] in the first syllable. 

Yes that's true, but I'm not sure if that's smth new in ohg and old 
english or not, I leave that to those who know better.

> have been here. But the "butterfly" shows weird sound changes in 
the 
> languages.

The swedish word 'fjäril' is of that origin and that's a weird change.

 
> It could be of a speculative interest to see what would become of 
the 
> reconstructed Gothic *feifaldro "butterfly" if we imagine it 
> undergoing all the known (known?) historical phonetic 
transformations 
> which affected the early Germanic loanwords in the Romance dialects 
of 
> Italy. What could have happened with the intervocalic -f-? With the
> -ldr- cluster? Where the stress would fall?

I'm not that good in italian phonetic changes so cannot tell.
Was the stress on the first syllable? I know it usually is but isn't 
it a reduplication?
In a gothic word as saislep, does it have the stress on the first or 
second syllable?

 
> Could it also be that the "farfalla" was borrowed from some South 
> German dialect (*fiefalter, *fiefaller or even *vierfaller)?

It's not impossoble I guess. But I don't know what those forms 
are/were.
Maybe as I said before it could've been from lombardian, but I don't 
know.

/Fredrik







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