Originally Slavic or Borrowing from Germanic?

[Karin Larsen]

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. 

---

Yes, it is quite complicated, since sound changes abound. This should be a 
relatively "simple" rule (as simple as things get in comparative linguistics) 
involving only sound change, not semantics. I think it has to do with 
polnoglasie/liquid metathesis and that the word for "milk" was used as an 
example (but of what, I don't remember). 

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