On 2006-06-23 05:31, junk554 wrote:
> For the unexpected initial <b> (initial <f> is
> expected) in Latin <barba>, a cognate of English <beard>, is the reason
> known? If so, what is the reason?
Hey, that's what we've been discussing here for several days! One thing
seems almost certain: the problem belongs to the history of Latin and
the initial /b/ is most likely due either to irregular _dissimilation_
in pre-Italic (*bH...dH > *b...dH) or to irregular _assimilation_ in
Latin itself (*f...b > *b...b). A more speculative alternative is early
inter-dialectal borrowing within IE (speculative, since the hypothetical
source cannot be identical with any of the known IE branch protolanguages).
Piotr