Re: [tied] Re: Soap, Slaughter Houses and Soup

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 13517
Date: 2002-04-27

 
----- Original Message -----
From: tgpedersen
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, April 27, 2002 10:49 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Soap, Slaughter Houses and Soup

> Isn't there a similar -a:-/-ai- problem in the various Germanic words
for "boat"? Which was sought explained as a loan through Friesian?
Did "soap" take a similar path?
/a:/ in Old Norse is less problematic, since by the time it first appeared Old English had for a long time had /a:/ from monophthongised *ai, and Norse sa:pa may well be an interdialectal loan (perhaps replacing pre-Norse *saip-o:n- or *saip-j-o:n-, as preserved by Finnic/Saami). But the monophthongisation of *ai in the individual West Germanic languages is too recent to account for Lat. sa:po: in the first century. There was no Frisian or English yet, and common West Germanic did not yet smoothe its diphthongs.
 
Piotr