From: tgpedersen
Message: 13169
Date: 2002-04-10
> --- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> > Back-mutated short <a> yields _short_ <o,>, so it doesn't matter
> from your point of view. Anyway, you can safely assume <ragn-> for
> eastern Norse.
> >
> > Piotr
> >
--- In cybalist@..., "tarasovass" <S.Tarasovas@...> wrote:
> The last question, just to close the case completely.
>
> The only reason for <a> > <o,> mutation I'm aware of (though I
> definitely feel there are others) is u-umlaut. This would point to
> something like *Ragunwaldaz as an archetype (with the meaning like
> 'gods' rule'?). If so, was umlaut lost or have failed in eastern
> Norse (= later Old Swedish)?
>
> In other words,
> 1. What would be the etymology for _Ro,gnvaldr_/_Ragnvaldr_?
> 2. Why can we safely assume _Ragnvaldr_ for eastern Norse while
> _Ro,gnvaldr_ seemes to be a standard western (Icelandic) form?
>
> Sergei
>
2. Eastern North Germanic shows very little u-umlaut. It's an Western
Norse thing (exceptions, eg.: Danish pl. <børn> "children" (but
Swedish pl. <barn>), <øl> (cf ale), <ørn> "eagle"). Perhaps the
following -w- is responsible for the umlaut.
Danish has (following Norse) two sounds designated by the letter /ø/;
witness this triangle of the long vowels in Danish:
1. i, y, u
2. e, ø, o
3. æ, ö, å
4. a
The /ö/ here is the Norse o,.
Some phonologists in the beginning of the 20th century tried to make
the Danes distinguish in writing between two ø's, but it never caught
on.
Torsten