From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 17792
Date: 2003-01-19
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miguel Carrasquer" <mcv@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 19, 2003 5:57 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] bison
> In Old Polish, zaNbrz was used for "tiger" (modern Polish
z.ubr has irregular z^- for z- [Mazurian dialect?] and -/u/- for -/oN/- [East Slavic?]).
The Old Polish 'bison' word was <za,br> (cf. place-names like Zambrów), dialectal <zub(e)r>. Modern <z.ubr> is a hypercorrect variant of the latter (wrongly assumed to be a Mazurian pronunciation with /z/ for /z^/). There are more Polish words with such "counter-Mazurian" treatment of sibilants, e.g. dzban 'jug' < czban [dz^ban] < *c^IbanU.
Piotr