[gothic-l] LATE!?

[keth at ONLINE.NO]

Il Akkad wrote:
>P.S. do you know some think there was no sound shift but only two different
>types of developments from some very unusal proto-language set of consonant
>(glottalic theory). One of its strongest points is a very similar
>development in Armenian.

No I didn't know that.

All I know, or realized lately, is that there apparently
is an explanation for the vacillation between p and f
in Old Norse. (cited in analogy to the below example
where Gothic slepan and Low German slapen became High
German schlafen)

For example Old Norse "after", is written some times
as "eptir", other times as "eftir". The explanation for
this is that the Old Norse "f" was not dento-labial
as it is in most modern European languages, but rather
bi-labial. How does this match up with your more
encompassing theory?

Keth





>> > Go. slepan   -- OHG slaffan
>> > Go. etum     -- OHG azum
>> > Go. mikils   -- OHG mihhil
>> > Go. twai     -- OHG zwei
>> > Go. hairto   -- OHG herza
>> > Go. drigkan  -- OHG trikhan
>>
>> Hi Stephen !  I add the corresponding Dutch words:
>>
>> >  slepan   -- slaffan  -- slapen    (sleep)
>> >  etum     -- azum     -- eten      (eat)
>> >  mikils   -- mihhil   -- machtig ? (mighty ?)
>> >  twai     -- zwei     -- twee      (two)
>> >  hairto   -- herza    -- hart      (heart)
>> >  drigkan  -- trikhan  -- drinken   (drink)
>>
>> Apparently the change   slapen -> schlafen  occurred relatively
>> late.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Keth
>>
>>     I know it came late, it wasn't done with by the time first southern
>German texts were composed. In fact it was , in a way, never finished
>altogether. Middle Franconian still has words without the second sound
>shift. BTW the centum-satem division cannot be taken in serious
>consideration any more. It was outdated some time ago with the discovery of
>Tocharian, which seems to have either crashed the whole system or ... well
>even Meillet thought the palatals a secondary 'inovation'. I am  not sharing
>his view, waiting for some other plausible theory to come up.
>                                    Il Akkad



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