On Wed, 30 Apr 2003 22:18:45 +0000, Abdullah Konushevci
<
a_konushevci@...> wrote:
>Just speculations, but IMAO the Latin vapor, -oris 'vapor, steam' is
>a proto-model of Italian vapore, French vapour, English vapor
>(through French). I never read that this Latin word was written with
>semivowel w, but allways with sonorizedfricative v, not even in
>Clasic Latin.
Of course it was never written with "w" in Classical Latin: that
letter didn't exist yet. The pronunciation of Latin V was either
vocalic /u/ or consonantal /w/.
I don't see how Romanian <abur> can be descended from <vapore>.
Initial v- is not usually dropped, intervocalic /p/ does not become
/b/ (that's Western Romance), and /o(:)/ does not become /u/ (except
before nasals).
The change kw- > w- in vapor (vapo:s) is irregular. We also have
caseus "cheese" from *kwatH-, with *kw- > *k-. Gamqrelidze & Ivanov
give another possible example, but with *k^w- instead of *kw- (both
not to be confused with labiovelar *kW), namely vitrus "glass" ~ Skt.
s'vitrás "shiny" (from the "white" root *k^weit-).
The online Demiraj gives the etymology of Albanian avull as:
Albanian form: avull [m] (tg)
Meaning: vapour, damp
Proto-Albanian: (h)au-ul- {1}
See also: aft
Page in Demiraj AE: 85
IE reconstruction: h2euh1-Vl-
Meaning of the IE root: vapour, steam
Certainty: +
Page in Pokorny: 82
Other IE cognates: Rom. abure `steam, damp'
Notes: {1} Alb. formation with the suffix -ull.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...