LL-L "Phonology" 2007.12.03 (09) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  03 December 2007 - Volume 09
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From: Diederik Masure <didimasure at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2007.12.03 (05) [E]

And the reverse happened (to a certain extent) in some (southern) Dutch
dialects, giving jij > gij, ginder/aan gene zijde vs. Goth. jains, Engl.
yon/yonder/yond etc., I guess one can find more examples on this.

@ Ingmar's comment about the spelling gi for [j]: this was also the case in
Old English probably/maybe originating from the shift /g/+palatal > /j/,
'gefan' /Gevan/ > 'giefan' (/jevan/ or /jievan/) and perhaps therefrom
originating spellings like 'gé' ('you') /je:/ et alii.
Note also that the 'traditional' Latin alphabet does not have a distinct
letter for the semivowel /j/ (and /w/), leaving medieval scribes with some
different solutions to represent these sounds. Representation of /j/ as /i/
as in Classical Latin seems not to be so common in Germanic tongues, perhaps
in these languages they felt to be more clearly two different sounds
requiring different graphemes than they did in Romance?
Diederik

From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL >

Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2007.12.03 (03) [E]

Is it possible that G or GI before E meant [j] here, and that Gievenstede
was the spelling for the name pronounced as Jevenstede?

And isn't it likely that Old Saxon G was not [g] but fricative [G] or a
palatal [G'], as in Dutch, including all Dutch dialects and all Low Saxon
in the Netherlands, Belgium and many of its border regions in Germany?
My theory is that J developed from [G'], not [g], directly, maybe because
this [G] / [G'] had become too hard for German Low Saxon/Low Franconian
speakers? Ingmar
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