Originally Slavic or Borrowing from Germanic?

[colkitto@rogers.com]

Original Message:
-----------------
From: Karin Larsen karinl at HUM.KU.DK
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:11:39 -0600
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: [SEELANGS] Originally Slavic or Borrowing from Germanic?


Dear Seelangers,

There is some kind of rule or test that can be used to establish whether a 
word is (likely to be) originally Slavic or a borrowing from Germanic, but
I can't 
remember what it is. I am pretty sure it has to do with an early sound
change 
that took place before the borrowings, but which? Anyone's help will be 
greatly appreciated.

Best,

Karin 

There are actually quite a few sound changes, involving both consonantism
and vocalism, what is/are the forms you have in mind? 

Also, you have to define "Germanic" - you can distinguish between
borrowings from  Gothic, High German, Low German, and Scandinavian, and
then English, Dutch, German, and Scandinavian at a later stage.

Also, there are quite a few borrowings from Slavic into Germanic (which
encompass a lot of Tolkien's iconic forms, but that's another topic), some
of which are best preserved in Old English.

And in at least one of the latter Martynov and Golab point to semantics as
a criterion for determining the direction of the borrowing.

This starts to get a bit complicated.



-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------
myhosting.com - Premium Microsoft® Windows® and Linux web and application
hosting - http://link.myhosting.com/myhosting

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------