--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> I think they actually substituted *-eu-, which was the closest
thing to PGmc. -iu- (a falling diphthong), especially if the first
element was rather high, as it seems to have been. The further
development of *-eu- > *-jeu- > *-ju- took place within (still Proto-)
Slavic.
>
> Piotr
>
Thank you, Piotr -- a very elegant explanation, and it also answers a
question I've been asking to myself since I became aware of the
etymology of the Slavic *tjudjI: how come that our ancestors managed
to render a falling diphthong by a rasing one?
By the way, how would do you date the retraction of the Proto-Slavic
diphthongs? My tentative guess would be somewhere between 0 AD and
300 AD.
Sergei