Re: -ow

From: Anthony Appleyard
Message: 34315
Date: 2004-09-27

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> Does the German pronunciation of former Slavic placenames within
> Germany in -ow as /o:/ (but 'real' Slavic names as '-off') indicate
> that at the first time of contact, Slavic /v/ was still /w/ ('-ow' -
> > 'o:')?

That would have been in the Slavic dialects that the Germans
contacted, such as the language of the Obotrites. In the Slavic
dialect of south Bulgaria, which St.Cyril contacted and invented the
Cyrillic alphabet for, /v/ was definitely /v/, since he spelt it with
Greek beta.