From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 24779
Date: 2003-07-24
On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 18:20:21 +0200, alex <alxmoeller@...> wrote:
Oh no, not again...
>What seems strange to the celtic "volcae" is the rendering in German.
>If the germans got the name from the celts, then this must have been
>"*wolhai".
Nope. In principle, /o/ was always a long vowel in Germanic. Celtic short
/o/ would have been borrowed as Germanic /a/. With the other changes (/k/
> /x/ ~ /h/, Germanic plural suffix), this would have resulted in Germanic
*walho:z (or *walhan(i)z).
>It is not easy to explain the rendering of "o" in "a" then in Slavic.
>Normaly we have an "a" > "o" in slavic not "o"> "a".
Which is exactly what we have: Germanic short /a/ gives Slavic short /o/:
Gmc. walh- > Common Slavic *wolx-. Subsequently, Slavic metathesis turns
this into wlox- (= Pol. wl/och-), wla:x- (= Cz/Svk/SSlav. vlax-), wolox-
(ESlav. wolox-).
>More, later, the Slavs they have has to do with the Greeks/ Byzanitne,
>they have been the South Slavs. They show this "a" there in the form
>"vlasi" ( the "s" make too some trouble just trough South Slavic or it
>is eassy to explain?).
Of course it's easy to explain. Apparently harder to remember... The nom.
masc. plural suffix -i (*-oi) causes 2nd. palatalization of /x/, giving
Common Slavic /s'/, which develops into /s/ in South and East Slavic.
>The west and North slavs have "voloh". The Germans use "walach".
No, the Germans have welsch "French, Italian", like the Dutch have waals
"French Belgian" and the English have Welsh "Welsh".
>Now it seems very curious the loan back into Germanic from Slavic.
There's nothing curious about it.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...