Re[2]: [tied] Oddity of English (was: Pronunciation of "r" - again?)

At 10:24:06 PM on Monday, October 10, 2005, Andrew Jarrette
wrote:

> Richard Wordingham <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:

>> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Andrew Jarrette
>> <anjarrette@...> wrote (in various posts):

[...]

> -- Then why hasn't "great" become "gret"? (ME grettre, OE
> griet(t)ra)

According to the OED (1989), in many dialects it has.

> Or "white" become "whit"?

It did in some dialects; this shortening 'was presumably
generalized from the comp. <whitter> or from compounds like
<whitbred>, <whitþorn>, where shortening is normal' (OED,
1989).

>>> But look at "one" from Old English a:n vs. "alone"
>>> originally "all one", Old English eall a:n. Why does
>>> "one" sound like "wun"? It is not its initial position,
>>> since "oats" comes from Old English a:te and "oar" from
>>> Old English a:r.

>> An aborted change or dialect form. Onions cites dialect
>> forms of _oak_ and _oats_ with the same development as
>> _one_. The 'w' in <whole> and <whore> may actually
>> reflect this sound change (a suggestion of Piotr's).

> -- But strange that it is unique to "one" in the modern
> language, I find.

It isn't precisely: initial /w/ in <oak> survives as a
regional variant in England, chiefly in the south, and
initial /w/ in <oat> survives in several regional English
forms (OED, Mar. 2004). Pronunciations of <whole> with
initial /w/ 'exist in modern dialects over an area extending
from Somerset to north-east Yorkshire' (OED, 1989). At <wh>
the 1989 OED notes current /w/ pronunciations of <hoard>,
<hold>, <home> and <hot>, adding that in <home>
pronunciations such as [wOm], [wU&m], and [wVm] cover a wide
area.

> But I still think the written form of a language can be
> counted a characteristic of that language. A parallel
> might be how a person's handwriting can be counted a
> characteristic of that person, even though his handwriting
> does not define him as a person.

The writing system(s) in which a language is customarily
recorded, or the lack thereof, is in a broad sense a
characteristic of that language, but it is not a
*linguistic* characteristic.

Brian