LL-L "Etymology" 2008.04.19 (03) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  - 19 April 2008 - Volume 03
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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2008.04.14 (05) [D/E]

> From: heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk <heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>
> Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2008.04.13 (04) [E]
> Simeon Potter   Our Language
>
> Baugh & Cable  History the the English Language
>
> anything by David Crystal
>
> in German  I only know Eggers    Sprachgeschichte which I found
> excellent. Maybe other forum members can recommend other titles.

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Etymology
>
> Sandy, I'm not aware of any literature specifically devoted to
> etymological methodology. It seems to be implicit and scattered in a
> variety of literature, mostly on historical linguistics.
>
> I can sort of recommend the following:
>
>       * Theodora Bynon, Historical Linguistics (Cambridge University
>         Press, 1977) ISBN 0-521-29188-7
>       * April McMahon, Understanding Language Change (Cambridge
>         University Press, 1994) ISBN 0-521-44665-1
>       * James Milroy, Linguistic Variation and Change (Blackwell,
>         1992) ISBN 0-631-14367-X
>       * Richard D. Janda & Brian D. Joseph (eds.), The Handbook of
>         Historical Linguistics (Blackwell, 2004) ISBN 1-4051-2747-3
> On the Web, the following provides a very simple introduction with
> fairly good imbedded links:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology
>
Thanks folks! That's a useful summary on the wiki, Ron, I found the link
to the "List of Etymologies" particularly interesting. "Firth" is from
"fjord"? The things you learn!

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Etymology

You're more than welcome, Sandy, as far as I am concerned.

"Firth" is from "fjord"? The things you learn!

Well, Old Norse has *fjorðr* (also spelled *fjǫrðr*, pronounced [ˈfjɔrðr̩],
> Modern Icelandic *fjörður*). There's a fricative in there, hence the "th".

My theory is that the donor variety ("Old Danish"? "Old Norwegian"?), which
may have already cast off the old *-r* (or else people recognized it as a
foreign *morpheme),* had an umlauted version (**fjörð* [fjœrð] or
**f(j)yrð*[f(j)ʏrð]). This might explain the vowel in "firth".

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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