Re: [tied] Re: Monovocalism: sequel

tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

> Perhaps Germanic vowel-initial (including those in w- and y-)
> words in the Romance languages were loaned with the Knacklaut, thus eg.
> *?werra > gwerra, similar to the way Verschärfung in North
> Germanic is supposed to have taken place. *?y- > *dy- would have followed,
> including native Romance words.

There is no Knacklaut before in initial w- in Germanic. And even if it had been there, it would have been totally ignored by Latin/Romance speakers.

The evolution was w- > gw-, as still in Castilian (borrowed: güisqui; native: agüelo, güevo), followed by gw- > g-, which is equally trivial.