[tied] Re: -ow

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:

>
> --- Anthony Appleyard <a.appleyard@...>
> wrote:
>
> > --- 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.
>
> *****GK: Final -v is still frequently pronounced as a
> "w" in Ukrainian (and probably in many other Slavic
> languages?). Thus "Khrushchov" spelled with the "v" is
> actually pronounced "Khrushchow" , "Petrov" as
> "Petrow", almost as a diphthong.*******
>
>

According to Piotr, Belarussian does too (that's how I remember it).
In Jutland the rule is w- before back vowels, v- otherwise. North of
the Lim fjord it's w- everywhere. Personally I think the /v/ of the
various continental languages is a French habit that spread in the
upper classes in the 18th century (along with the uvular /R/) and
ousted the original /w/. Cf. the situation in English.

Torsten