Re: Morimarusa

From: Torsten
Message: 65638
Date: 2010-01-14

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...> wrote:
>
> At 9:17:36 PM on Wednesday, January 13, 2010, dgkilday57
> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > On an unrelated matter, does Danish <pande> 'pan' require
> > a protoform (inherited or borrowed) with -nd-, or can it
> > be borrowed from a garden-variety Low German <panne>?
>
> It's <pænnæ> in the oldest Danish mss. (ca. 1275-1350),
> according to Ordbog over det Danske Sprog
> (http://ordnet.dk/ods/).
>
> As <panna> it's in a Norw. document of 1366 from Tolga in
> Hedmark, and SAOB lists fornsvenska <panna>; it's an old
> borrowing in WGmc., but it looks as if NGmc. probably got it
> from MLG.
>

The -nd- is an artifact of Danish spelling rules. All Germanic languages have a problem with representing long vs. short vowels and solves it by writing double either the vowel or the auslaut consonant; Danish, because of the lenition of stops after long vowel, does not have that problem with syllables with stops in auslaut; a large part of the remainder of short vowel roots have -l- and -n- in auslaut, and since the pronounciation of original -ld- and -nd- has merged (via -ly- and -ny-) with original -ll- and -nd-, that spelling tended to spread to roots where it was unoriginal, since that way Danish spelling could avoid a general rule to write double the auslaut consonant, eg. 'mand' /man?/ "man", like 'land' /lan?/ "land". In other words, never trust a modern Danish -ld- or -nd- to mean anything other than -ll- or -nn-.


Torsten