Re: [tied] Other IE language with /w/

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Mate Kapoviæ <mkapovic@...> wrote:

>
> On Èet, listopad 13, 2005 9:04 pm, Grzegorz Jagodzinski reèe:
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Andrew Jarrette
> > To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> > Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2005 7:49 PM
> > Subject: [tied] Other IE language with /w/
> >
> >
> >> Now I may regret having said that "all other IE languages" than

English

> >> have changed /w/ in initial position.
> >
> > English has preserved (nearly) all initial w's unchanged.

However, I can

> > give anonother example of preserving [w] unchanged (at least in

most

> > position), and two more examples of preserving [w] in a nearly

unchanged

> > shape.
> >
> > 1) The Sorbian languages have preserved initial w- in most

positions.

> > Anyway, w- remains [w] in Lower Sorbian except when before o, u

in native

> > words (where it changed into [h]).
> > 2) Standard Dutch (I mean the standard variant which is being

described in

> > teach-yourself books etc.) changed the bilabial approximant /w/

(in

> > anlaut)
> > into the labio-dental approximant, so the change is less than in

most

> > other
> > IE languages.
>
> That is also the case in Standard Croatian and in my native

©tokavian

> dialect. But Dutch has the opposition of approximant and

fricative /v/, we

> don't.

When Danish (outside of Jysk) is listed as one of the languages that
changed /w/ to /v/, that's true only for that consonant in anlaut
(syllable-initially). In all other positions it's a /w/ (or,
formulated alternatively, has merged with the preceding vowel to
form a diphthong /iU/, /eU/, /aU/ etc.


Torsten