From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 23362
Date: 2003-06-16
You mean "labial", I suppose. [w] evolved towards [v] (presumably via the bilabial fricative/approximant [B]) independently in different languages, as it did in so many other branches (e.g. Romance, and Germanic, where English is the only language that preserves the original pronunciation). In Slovene, Slovak, Ukrainian and Belarusian [w] and [B] still exist as positional realisations of /v/. Before a vowel (as in *sve~tU), however, all Slavic languages have a fricative now, and the change must have taken place early in this position: in some very old Polish texts we find <f-> for <chw-> (*xv-), which indicated a fricative pronunciation ([xv-] > [xf-] > [f-]). The spelling <f> is also found at an early date for *v in devoicing environments.Thank you for the explanation for slavic development. I seen the rendering in Rom. in the same manner as I wrote: "Thus , the slavic "sve~tU" could be represented just as "sfentu" "sfânt". " It remains to clarify some points: 1) which is the supposed period of time as the more velar version of Slavic "w" became fricative?
A good question. It seems to be an inherited Balto-Slavic word (cf. Lith. s^ventas) < *k^wento-), but its religious or magical semantics is so strikingly Iranian-like, that the cultural influence of the Iranian cognate *spanta- (Av. sp&nta-) is extremely probable.2) which is the etymology of Slavic "sve~ntu" ?
What examples do you have in mind?3) when in South Slavic the group "*sUv-" became "zv-"?
Piotr