[gothic-l] Re: The Letter H

[Francisc Czobor]

--- In gothic-l at y..., keth at o... wrote:
> ... 
> There is however another argument, and perhaps I shouldn't mention 
it
> yet. But it concerns the Gothic ai-:
> 
> You saw that I went into some language statistics and showed that
> initial H was very common in Germanic (I checked for Gothic and
> Old Norse). But initial E was very rare in Gothic. Example is
> PN "Esaw" But that is imported and so we disregard it.
> However initial AI was much more common than initial E in Gothic.
> 
> Thus, Gothic airþ = "earth".
> But in German it is Erde, and Da/Engl it is jord/earth.
> So you see:
>            Gothic   German     Danish    English
>              ai       e          jo        ea
> 
> This is the rule of "correspondence" between these languages.
> But it can also be depicted as the branches of a tree.
> 
> One more example:
> 
>  Gothic   German     Danish    English   Dutch
>  hairto   hertz      hjerte    heart     hart
> 
>  Old Norse Old Frisisan Old English Old Saxon  Old High German
>  hjarta    herte        heorte      herta      herza
> 
> Well, I don't know what the original urnordisk may have
> been. But I think it must have been with an "e", although
> the books I have don't say. Maybe the Finnish form can tell us?
> Any way, maybe the Gotic "ai" developed from an earlier 
> undocumented "urgotisk" where it also was en "e", i.e.
> the same as in urnordisk.
> 

Hi Keth,

of course, in your examples the Common Germanic language had an "e".
In Wulfilan Gothic "ai" before an "r"  (in airþa, hairto, etc.) does 
not represent the diphthong [ai], but a short, open [e], while "e" 
means a long, closed [e]. In Norse, the "e" was "broken" to "ja" or 
"jo" because of the vowel of the following syllable. In Old English, 
the "e" was "broken" to "eo" (in modern English: "ea") because of the 
following "r".

Francisc


------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Small business owners...
Tell us what you think!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/vO1FAB/txzCAA/ySSFAA/wWMplB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

You are a member of the Gothic-L list.  To unsubscribe, send a blank email to <gothic-l-unsubscribe at egroups.com>. 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/