Re: [tied] Re: Language - Area

The Gothic digraph <ai> is ambiguous; it can stand either for [e] or for [ai] (philological transcription differentiates the two cases as aí vs. ái). Unfortunately, in <hails> (cognate to Slavic ce^lU < *kailo-) and related words <ai> represents a genuine diphthong < PGmc *ai (= ON ei, OE a:).

But there is no problem, really. The Scandinavian derivative borrowed into Slavic was not heiligr < *xailagaz, as Joao suggested, but Helgi, where the historically long vowel had been shortened in a closed syllable already in Scandinavian (this is also the Icelandic form of the name). Cf. English holy < ha:lig but hallow < halgian < ha:lg-ian. That is, OlIgU is (H)elg- with East Slavic vocalisation. I can't see any remaining difficulties here.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: Sergejus Tarasovas

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 5:45 PM

Subject: [tied] Re: Language - Area - Routes

If I'm not mistaken, Gothic {ai} renders an *open* /e/. It's that /open e/ that could yield o- in anlaut through normal development (there's a minor problem even in that case, by the way: clusters like eCI- are expected to retain original e, cf. *ez^I > jez^I > joz^I, not *oz^I). Old Norse /ei/ or East Scandinavian /e:/ should give East Slavic /e^/ rather than /e/ - it's phonetic implementation were mostly just that: [ei]:[e:]:[ie] (except for Krivichian, but it's different topic to disuss). One should expect Old Russian **E^lIgU, E^lIga > Russian **Jeleg, Jelga - exactly what we don't have. *Iggvars fits pefectly as well. I'm not sure about E Scandinavian form, but if it cointains -n- (something like Ingv-) it should be banned immediately - it had to yield Old Russian **E,gorI, Russ. **JagorI - nonexistent forms. Besides, Old Russian IgorI and IngUvarI were consistently treated as being different (one prince of the same family at the same time could bear the name of IgorI, while another - IngUvarI). Two different sources?

Re: [tied] Re: Language - Area - Routes