--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Andrew Jarrette <anjarrette@...> wrote:
>
> Now I may regret having said that "all other IE languages" than
English have changed /w/ in initial position. Today I got my hair
cut, and in conversing with my haircutter I found out that she is an
Iraqi of Kurdish descent who speaks Kurdish. Since I am excessively
curious about this subject, I asked her if Kurdish had /w/ or /v/, to
which she replied that it had both. So I tried to think of an IE word
with initial /w/ that might be preserved in Kurdish, and so I asked
her what the Kurdish word for "water" is. She replied with a word
that sounded exactly the same as North American English "water",
including not only rounded approximant /w/, but semi-rounded open back
English-style "short o" (I don't know how to express the IPA
character), and untrilled /r/. It also had a medial /d/ like the
North American pronunciation of medial /t/ (effectively, "wodder",
exactly the same as North American pronunciation). (I couldn't help
but wonder whether she deliberately altered it to make
> it sound like English, as though to please me or something). So
there is an IE language that has retained initial /w/! However, I
don't know whether it is only before back or rounded vowels, so I am
not sure whether my statement has been completely disproved.
******
Interesting, considering that the Old Iranian word for "water" was a
reflex of a different I.-E. root -- Pokorny's a:>p-2.
Anyone have another source to make sure the lady wasn't messing with
more than Andrew's hair?
Dan Milton