On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 16:22:16 +0000, Richard Wordingham
<
richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
>> There are the two
>> Armenian words with unexplained *dh < *th, which Birgit mentions
>(awd and
>> awdik`)
>
>What do these two words mean?
Answered by Jens.
>I can't find them in the index to
>Pokorny at http://flaez.ch/pok/arm.html , but I don't know whether
>you use the same transcription as Pokorny.
Partridge's index to Pokorny lists an <awd> for page 75, where it is
written as <aud> "shoe". Olsen only mentions <o:d> "soft wind", a
different word.
The transcriptions <au>, <aw> and <o:> are all equivalent, more or less.
The Armenian alphabet is based on Greek. This means that the letter <w>,
based on Greek upsilon, was used to write the diphtongs <aw>, <ew>, <iw>.
However, <ow> was used, Greek-style, to write the vowel /u/. So another
letter, transcribed as <v>, was needed to write the diphthong /ow/ (<ov>).
The same letter <v> was also used to write word-initial /w-/. This /w/
later became /v/. The diphthong /aw/, written <aw>, later changed to /O:/,
and a new letter <o:> was invented to write this sound. This means that we
can find the following possible transcriptions:
/u/ : ow, u
/ow/ : ov, ou, ow
/aw/ : aw, o:, au, av
I prefer <u>, <ow> and <aw> (and etymological <ey> for <e:>). Olsen uses a
strict [post 12th-century] transliteration, and therefore has <ow>, <ov>
and <o:>. Pokorny uses Hübschmann's older transcription, which sometimes
uses <au>, <av>, <iu>, <iv>, etc.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...