Re: Albanian pre and Romanian prada

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, g <st-george@...> wrote:

>
> treabã, trebi & treburi: there are subdialectal regions (esp. in
> Transylvania) where the verb a trebui in the indicative sg. 3rd
> pers. treabã is pronounced trabã or trãbã; yet never the noun
> treabã (some people in other regions, incl. Bucharest assume that
> this one is also > de-diphtongized). Moreover, the colloquial and
> regional tendency to diphtongize drac ("devil") esp. in Bucharest
> and surrounding counties is also and to the same extent there esp.
> in West-Transylvanian > subdialects. This illustrates that one can
> never 100% rely on the e<->ea<->a theories either. (Transylvania,
> subdialectally, is still the most active converter of e and ea into
> a -- also because the subdialects there have an additional "open"
> [e], which is unknown beyond the Carpathian range in the South and
> East, and which, of course, is closer to [a] -- in a similar way
> as it is the "a" in has, have, hat, at, as; also similar to the
> [a] pronounced in Hamburg-Deutsch.)

the plural of dialectal "trabã" is stil "treburi" and it shows
the "e" there with no doubt. The matter is just that the plural form
shows the original vowel while the sg. forms can vary.

The diphtongation of "drac" to "dreac" is a modern "slang" where one
just try to diminuate the effect of the injurie. There will be never
used in a normal conversation "dreac" instead of "drac" but when one
speaks affected then there is the use od "dreac". So far my
experience with this word.

>
> George
>
> PS: the word entered the Hung. vocabulary as préda ['pre:d@] (I
> don't know when and whether from late Latin or so)

Should we wonder? The change of "a" to "e" in Hungarian did happen
after they arrived in Europe. It is a loan from a language which have
had "a" there instead of e.

Alex