Re: [tied] Re: Thuringen

The Scandinavian "rising diphthong" /ju:/ (A-umlauted to /jo:/ or I-umlauted to /y:/) developed out of the Proto-Nordic falling diphthong /iu/ < PGmc *iu < *eu. The development of /iu/ to /ju:/ is rather common cross-linguistically. Middle English /iu, eu/ > Modern English /ju:/ (but cf. e.g. Welsh English /iu/ with the first half more prominent). However, the point Sergei and I have discussed is that the Slavic sequence traditionally transcribed as *ju requires a falling diphthong (such as *iu or *eu) in the original loan. Neither *ju nor *ju: as a starting point would have given the right reflex, as Sergei rightly observed. Therefore, the rising diphthong must have developed within Slavic.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: tgpedersen

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 4:58 PM

Subject: [tied] Re: Thuringen

Krivichian was the language of Novgorod, right? PIE *eu -> Old Norse jo, i-umlauted y. Thus skjota, skytr "shoot, he shoots" Swedish skjuta, skjuter Danish skyde, skyder Apparently Danish generalized the umlauted vowel, Swedish the un- umlauted one. So we might guess that in South Norse (different from standard Old Norse, which is Old Icelandic) we had PIE *eu -> *ju, i-umlauted *y The umlauted vowel survives in Da, Sw <tysk> "German", older <tydsk> (umlauted from *þjuð-isk-?). No un-umlauted reflex of *þjuð- survives. In Danish in general *ju -> *y except before /l/. So the development of the diphthong might have taken place outside of Slavic. Torsten