Re: s > Hungarian zs, Polish z., Czech z^

As Miguels' point about the origin of Hungarian "s" and "sz" is
completely valid, the only possibility that remains seems to be a
phonetic mismatch between Hungarian and Slavic dentialveolar laminal
[s] and the High German sound (most of the names you mention were
borrowed via German). Perhaps at the time the HG realisation of /s,
z/ was apical and somewhat retracted (like Scottish /s/ as pronounced
by Sean Connery, for example), while /S/ was more palatal than now.
Of course I'm only guessing here.

To be sure, we have Zygmunt for Sigmund (the name of three kings of
Poland), Ezaw for Esau, etc., but on the other hand there are several
old loanwords with /Z/ for German /z/, e.g. z.ol/d 'soldier's pay' (<
sold-) and z.ol/nierz 'soldier'; cf. also krzyz. 'cross' (I'll check
how it was derived from crux, maybe it's a blend of "Christ"
and "cross" words, cf. English crisscross). Also, kunszt 'art' <
Kunst pronounced with /S/ (same in many similar words). It's an
interesting problem; I'll try to see if it has been discussed by
Polish etymologists.

Piotr


--- In cybalist@egroups.com, Joăo Simőes Lopes Filho <jodan99@...>
wrote:

> Elisabeth : Hungarian Erzsebet
> Balthasar : Hg. Boldizsar
> Blasius (Blaise) : Hg. Balazs
> Eusebius : Hg. O"zseb
> Rose : Hg. Rozsa Cz. Rozâ, Roza Pol. Ro:z.a
> Moses : Hg. Mo:zes Cz. Mojz^is^ Pol. Mojz.esz
> Sigmund: Hg. Zsigmond
> Esauh: Hg. E:zsau
> This s > z > z^ occurs in Hungarian and influenced other languages?
> Occurs in some Germanic dialect? Some Italian dialect?
> In Polish, Czech and Hungrian the ending -(i)us appears sometimes

as -(i)us

> or -(i)us^. Maybe orthographical variations.
> -s->-z- is typical of Western Latin languages, cf.

Theresa /Tereza/, Rosa

> /Roza/
>
> Joao SL
> Rio
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <mcv@...>
> To: <cybalist@egroups.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2000 7:15 PM
> Subject: Re: [tied] s > Hungarian zs, Polish z., Czech z^
>
>
> > On Wed, 15 Nov 2000 19:16:19 +0100, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
> > <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> >
> > >The replacement of /s, z/ by Hungarian s, zs /S, Z/ is the rule

in early

> loanwords (iskola <-- schola,), now the pattern is different

(szemeszter,

> zoológia). The reason must be sought in early Hungarian phonetics --

a

> subject I know little about.
> >
> > That's what I always imagined, but apparently this is not so. In

his

> > excellent treatment of the "Historical Phonology of the Uralic
> > Languages", Pekka Sammallahti (in: Sinor, ed. "The Uralic

Languages",

> > 1988) makes it quite clear that PUgr. *s > Hung /s/ (<sz>), while
> > Hung. /S/ (<s>) derives from PUgr. *c^. The one, minor,

exception is

> > *sk > *s^.
> >
> > There must be some other reason, but I can't imagine what it'd be
> > (some Southern German orthographical oddity?).
> >
> > =======================
> > Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
> > mcv@...
> >
> >
> >
> >