From: daniel prohaska
Message: 37920
Date: 2005-05-18
>>1) is the German "au" from anything else as an older "u"?
>> (latin murus > mauer, durare > dauer, IE *suru >sauer, etc)
>>1) any idea when the "u" > "au" in German stoped as phenomenon?
>>thank you in advance,
>>Alex
Alex,
Yes. Instances of Germanic /au/ where they haven’t been monophthongised to OHG /o:/ before certain consonants, i.e. NHG <Baum>, <glauben>, <Haupt>.
Dan