LL-L "Phonology" 2008.05.06 (03) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 05 May 2008 - Volume 03
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From: Henno Brandsma <hennobrandsma at hetnet.nl>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2008.05.03 (01) [E]

From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2008.05.02 (10) [E]

[snip]

NL Frisian has "wetter" and "sliepje", my guess is that "wetter" is from
*"waeter" with the once stretched vowel made short again.

"sliepe", not "sliepje", although "slypje" exists, which means the same as
Dutch "slijpen".

As to whether "wetter" once had a long vowel: no modern W. Frisian dialect
has it.
And WF is well-known for not having lengthening for -[ae]-, (and [u] and
[i], but lengthening of [a] and [o] is common), e.g.:
helje (D. halen), betelje (D. betalen), "lekje" (D. laken (V)), lekken (D.
laken (N)), stekke (D. steken) etc.
And hence "wetter" is not surprising. There is lengthening of e in closed
syllable, pretty old presumably,
in words like "bêd", though not in words like "wedzje" (D. wedden).
Saterlandic does lengthen -e- in many of the above words (I haven't checked
in a dictionary,
this is from memory, just came back from Berlin). The -e- form is already
old Frisian IIRC, though
the w- has a tendency to hinder the Ingvaeonic a>e change (e.g. wâdzje (D.
waden) has no e sound
though one might have expected one). Even the conservative Schiermonnikoog
dialect has
"wåtter", with short vowel, although it has more long vowels than standard
mainland Frisian has.
(the å comes from e, and is present in many words.)
NF has so many forms it's hard to say what is oldest, the long or short
vowel. They mostly have ee
now (weeder, e.g.).
So probably -e- has always been short in the West, longer in the East (also
the origin of North Frisian).
I'll try to look in the dictionaries I have tomorrow.

Regards,

Henno
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