LL-L: "Names" LOWLANDS-L, 02.MAY.2000 (12) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: john feather [johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk]
Subject: Names

Mike Adams wrote:
 > the "WulF" family, which when
> it was translated to French or Italian it became Guelph..
>
> Gu was the closest French and Italian speakers could come to _w_ (back
> before it became [v] in the mid-Middle Ages), so you get that in lots of
> old names and words:  ward/guard,  warranty/guarantee, war/guerre
(related
> to German wirr, meaning chaotic).  When French subsequently vocalized _l_
> in some positions, that led the name Wilhelm to be Guillaume [giyom] and
> Walt-her/Walter to be Gautier.  As "guard" etc. shows, these Germanic
words
> have sometimes been borrowed back into Germanic languages.<

In English we have the initial consonants "w" and "wh", the latter spelt
"hw" in Old English. In Scotland "wh" is still pronounced [hw] but in
England this pronunciation has almost died out and is probably regarded by
most people as affected.

In Gothic there were two "w" sounds, transcribed as "w" (voiced) and "hw"
(unvoiced). (Wright uses a symbol which I can't reproduce for "hw" and also
says that it may represent a labialised "h", but let's keep this simple!).
Since it is a little difficult to see how the voiced "w" could become "gu"
but easier to see that "hw" could if the first element is exaggerated, I
wonder if the first step in the transformation is unvoicing, possibly as a
kind of parody by Romance speakers, rather like the way some English people
pronounce "Reichstag" as "Reich-shtag". This step is needed in the case of
"Guelph", for example, because the Gothic word is "wulfs", not "hwulfs".

There are still the questions
a) why French has "guêpe" for "wasp" while Italian has "vespa"
b) why Romance had to borrow a word for such an ordinary creature.

Does any Lowlander have any better ideas about the curious English "wh" and
its antecedents?

Andrew wrote:

>Also, did you know, the etymology of "Penguin"
>As in Penzance etc, "pen" in Cornish means head and "gwyn" means black thus
Pen Gwyn.
>While on the subject, does anyone know what "aber" means as in "Aberdeen,
Aberavon and Aberystwyth"?<

Chambers Dictionary of Etymology cites the suggestion that Welsh "pen" +
"gwyn" is the origin of "penguin" but doesn't like it, pointing out that it
would actually give "penwyn". I wonder if this is an example of initial
consonant mutation, which bedevils the learning of Welsh (because it makes
it harder to look things up in dictionaries!). An obvious example is
Cymru/Gymreig = Wales/Welsh. If the basic form of "gwyn" is "wyn" then it
would revert to it as a second syllable. But this is just hwesswork.

"Aber", I think, means "mouth" (of a river). Aberdeen stands at the mouth of
the River Dee.

John Feather
johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

----------

From: Jorge Potter [jorgepot at caribe.net]
Subject: LL-L: "Names" LOWLANDS-L, 02.MAY.2000 (04) [E]

Dear Lowlanders,

Greetings from the Caribbean!

Andrew Saffrey wrote:

>  in Cuba "gu" is pronounced no differently from Spanish "hu" i.e. Eng.
> w, thus there are three spellings for Marijuana (marijuana, marihuana and
> mariguana)

Sorry, Andrew, this simply is not correct. Each is pronounced differently. The
letter "h" is always silent in modern Spanish, unless it's a hillbilly
speaking, when it is very mildly aspirated. The "j" (or "g" before "i" or "e")
is strongly aspirated in most places, but in the Antilles much less so. The
"g" is always hard before "a," "o" or "u," as in English.  In Puerto Rico and
the Canary Islands the most common pronunciation of initial or double "r" is
identical with the Colombian "j!" (Also in Brazilian Portuguese)

None of my dictionaries will go out on a limb on etymology, but they do agree
it came from Mexico. I always like "marijuana," because it translates "Mary
Jane," but that nonsensically puts the cart before the horse. The Royal
Spanish Academy accepts only "marihuana" and "mariguana."

This happens with quite a few other words, too. "Huevo" meaning eggs or
testicles is often called "güevo." So a ballsy guy is more likely to be called
"güevudo" or simply "güevú" than "huevudo." In fact, the latter sounds
ridiculous, like a prissy person trying to talk dirty. Another related
phenomenon is putting a hard "g" instead of "b": "güeno" for "bueno" (good),

I was always curious whether there would be the same or different linguistic
phenomena resulting in a "g"  representing an aspiration in Spanish, Dutch and
Ukrainian?

Jorge Potter

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