Non-IE roots in Germanic/@, a, e, i, j, o, u

[Larry Trask]

On Sun, 7 Mar 1999, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:

[on Basque <haizkora> from Latin <asciola>]

> Might the word not have been borrowed directly as <aizkola>, with
> metathesis of the /i/ (especially if Latin <sci> already had a
> degree of allophonic palatalization)?  That, or analogy with the
> other tool words in (h)ai(t)z-.

All of these things are possible, and the contamination view has been
put forward.  The direct-borrowing view has not been favored, because we
know of no good parallel, while the sporadic change of /a/ to /ai/ in a
first syllable is well documented.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk