LL-L "Etymology" 2011.01.04 (02) [EN]

Wed Jan 5 01:48:49 UTC 2011

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L O W L A N D S - L - 04 January 2011 - Volume 02
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From: M.-L. Lessing <marless at gmx.de>

Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2011.01.04 (01) [EN-FY-NDS]

Dear Henno & all,

now I am really daring: Can it be that your "kust" has anything to do with
the german word "Küste" = coast(line)? A coast is of course a visible
difference... but there is rarely anything to "choose". But "Köste", an old
expression for a feast, is related via "Kost" with "to choose", true?

All the deep relationships of words that I have learned in this discussion
is something I will never forget (provided God spares me from dementia in
old age)! It is really like a landscape of language opening with new
prospects after every bend of the path. Thank you all.

Marlou

From: Henno Brandsma <hennobrandsma at hetnet.nl>

Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2011.01.03 (03) [EN]

In Dutch we have the expression "te kust en te keur gaan" and this contains
2 old Ablaut variants of "*keuZan"

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From: Heiko Evermann <heiko.evermann at gmx.de>

Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2011.01.04 (01) [EN-FY-NDS]

> The r-z change is due to an old phenomenon known as "Grammatischer
Wechsel" in Indo-European linguistics.

This is something really funny. I have already seen that in Latin
where e.g. an old Latin "esam" (I was) became "eram".

But:
This change is hard for me to understand. A change from t to tz to s
(Hochdeutsche Lautverschiebung) is easy to follow, especially with the
aspirated t that we have here in North Germany. But from s/z to r or back is
quite a stretch.

Can anyone make that shift plausible to me?

Heiko Evermann
Hamburg

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>

Subject: Etymology

Heiko, you wrote:

This change is hard for me to understand. A change from t to tz to s
(Hochdeutsche Lautverschiebung) is easy to follow, especially with the
aspirated t that we have here in North Germany. But from s/z to r or back is
quite a stretch.

 I’ve been wondering this for a long time and have come up with the
following observations and thoughts.

   - First of all, let’s assume that we are talking about apical /r/ [r]
   (produced with the tip of the tongue).

   - Secondly, let’s bear in mind that the r/z alternation we are talking
   about it very old. It seems to have taken place before and just after
   Germanic languages began to branch off proto-Germanic.

   - Both /r/ and /z/ are alveolar; the position of the tongue is similar in
   pronouncing them.

   - Both /r/ and /z/ are voiced.

   - In certain West Slavic languages, palatalization of /r/ (i.e. /r/
   pronounced before a front vowel like /i/ and /e/) led to the creation of an
   allophone that survives in Czech, there is now considered a phoneme and is
   represented by the letter *ř* (as in Dvořák). It tends to be perceived as
   [ʒ] (as in French *j**our*) and its devoiced allophone tends to be
   perceived as [ʃ] (as in *sh*oe). However, it is accompanied by a trill as
   in [r]. It’s Polish counterpart is spelled *rz*, but the pronunciation of
   it is now [ʒ] and its devoiced for is pronounced [ʃ]. In Russian and
   Ukrainian equivalent is a palatalized /r/ [r]: [rʲ]. Upper Sorbian, too,
   uses the letter *ř* but now pronounces it [ʃ] (which corresponds to
*ŕ*([rʲ] > [ʀʲ] in Lower Sorbian).
   E.g. ‘river bank’:

   - Czech: břeh řeky
      - Slovak: breh rieky
      - Polish: brzeg rzeką
      - Upper Sorbian: brjóh rěcy
      - Lower Sorbian: brjog rěcy
      - Ukrainian: bereh ričky (берег річки)
      - Russian: bereg reki (берег реки)

      - Some language varieties, such as those of Turkish and of Latin
   American Castilian (Spanish), devoice final /r/. The resulting sound is not
   very much unlike that of Czech *ř*.

   - Language varieties that (at least natively) lack the sound /š/ [ʃ] tend
   to pronounce /s/ with the tip of the tongue farther back, which results in a
   sound in between [s] and [ʃ]. This is possible because /s/ and /š/ do not
   stand in opposition. Nowadays you can hear this in many dialects of
   Castilian of Spain, in Dutch and in Finnish, for example. Apparently there
   are indications that in Old (High) German /s/ (which had no /š/ counterpart)
   was farther back as described above and that for a good while this sound
   stood in contrast to a more frontal variety of /s/ that was the result of
   the shift *–tt* > *–zz*, as in Modern German *besser* and *weiß*.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

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