Balkan e- > je- (was: Romanian Development of /st/)

From: Richard Wordingham
Message: 30390
Date: 2004-01-31

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex" <alxmoeller@...> wrote:
> Richard Wordingham wrote:

> It appears that every /e/ in initial position undergone the
change . At
> least there is no /e/ , no word which begin with /e/ and can be
considered
> as inherited. It is just /ie/.
> Returnig to Orbilat, why should be it a Slavic influence?

The development of prothetic consonants is a striking Slav
development. In Russian, for example, all the words in my pocket
dictionary that begin e- are, with three exceptions, recognisably
international words - most are clearly related to English words, but
there are a few that clearly derived from French, German or
Italian. (The relationship with English words almost certainly
arises because English has also borrowed the words, chiefly from
French or Latin.) The three exceptions are _efes_ 'hilt',
_etot_ 'this', _etakii_ 'such', though _etaz^erka_ is only
nderstandable as compound of _etaz^_ 'floor, storey' < French
_étage_.

> Are some very
> special Slavic features here in e > ie and when in the next
sylable is an
> /e/ or an /ã/ the /ie/ > /ia/ ?

The mopping up of the few remaining words in /e-/, /E-/ not affected
by the Romance-wide change /"E/ > /"ie/ (in some degree or other) is
unsurprising given the heavy Slav influence.

The breaking is not a general Slav feature, so far as I know.
However, Bulgarian _breaz_ > Romanian _breaz_ 'pie-bald' is
intriguing. Does Bulgarian also have breaking?

> So far I know this /je/ is in Albanian as well, thus , why Slavic
influence?

As Germanic /e/ > Old Norse /ja/, the Albanian change may just be a
coincidence, though I suppose it might actually be an over-
generalisation of the Romanian changes!

Richard.