prat(t) (but not Siouan)

[Anthony Grant]

>>> John.Koontz at colorado.edu 06/08/2004 17:05:34 >>>
On Fri, 6 Aug 2004, ROOD DAVID S wrote:
> Germanic /p/ should correspond to Latin /b/, not /f/ (slippery,
> lubricus), and where's the Latin equivalent of the /t/??  I know my
> Indo-European is rusty, but this doesn't seem at all right.

Dear John:

I have the impression that native sources of p in German are rare.
Does
*/__r preserve PIE *p?

-No it doesn't.  IE *pr becomes /fr/.  Latin primus - English first,
that sort of thing. Inherited English /p/ goes back to PIE /b/.

> I've been wondering whether "prattle" is a pejorative diminutive
> of this word.  There aren't very many of those in English.

I think Bob Rankin once suggested scat :: skittle, cf. shit.  (I don't
think sk in skittle could be native English, however.)

-Nor could sc- in scat.  /sk-/ in Middle English words is a sigh of
them being Latin, French or Norse rather than OE.

-anthony