Re: [tied] Re: English Young (was: Indo-Iranian Vowel Collapse)

At 4:49:12 PM on Thursday, November 24, 2005, Rob wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
> <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:

>>> A couple off-topic things: 1. Why is the Modern English
>>> word 'calf' and not *chealf (pl. *chealver)?

>> a) The singular derives from *kalba-m or *kalba-z - both
>> neuter and masculine thematic plurals are know from Old
>> English.

>> b) Breaking after 'c' is West Saxon, and breaking before
>> 'l' is non-Anglian.

> What do you mean by "breaking"?

Here it's the diphthongization of earlier /æ/ to /æa/.

>> c) The Norman conquest enabled the Anglian East Midlands
>> dialect to become dominant.

> Was the West Saxon dialect dominant beforehand?

The literary standard in the couple of centuries before the
Conquest was Late West Saxon.

Brian