Re: [tied] melken, Milch, Molke [Re: Of cows and living]

---

From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
Reply-To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [tied] melken, Milch, Molke [Re: Of cows and living]
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 12:43:33 -0000

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, st-george@... wrote:
>
> >Oops.
> >
> >Why -ch in Milch and -k in melken and Molke?
>
> I wish I knew myself. Perhaps because of the
> general older (Middle and South) German habit
> [k] > [x]. Tirolians and Swiss go even further:
> words such as Kind, Kaese are actually pro-
> nounced with sorts of [x]-like sounds instead
> of [k] (velar-uvular "behauchtes k", more or
> less similar to what one hears in
> Neerlandsch :)).
>
> Whereas the nextdoorneighbors, speakers of
> Bavarian & Suebian, never have such [x]
> rendering of the [k] in the same situations.
>
> BTW, in Southern German, there is a dialectal
> tendency to...
>
>    Mili ['mi-li] (which can also sound
>    rather like ['mi-le]),
>    M�li ['m�-li] (in East Austria)
>    and
>    Mui(ch) [muj(x)].

As if from *mulg^- ?


>
> In Middle German, also
>
>    Millisch ['miliS]
>
> (since there [x] > [S]).
>
> >Torsten
>
> George


But unless there is a secret dairy component in the production of
Weisswurst, I can't see how the -ch/-k variants could be explained
with reference to Low vs. High German, which would be the standard
explanation of that variation elsewhere. So we'll have to accept the
presence of either both *melg^/*melgh^ in Proto-Germanic or appeal
to some sort of loan transmission of both.

BTW Dutch melk /mel&k/ with epenthetic vowel.


--------------------------------------------------------

Why has no one pointed out that German Milch goes back to OHG miluh with a vowel before the h, whereas German melken goes back to OHG melc(h)an? Cf. also OE meoloc, meoluc. But why does miluh have a second vowel (non-epenthetic, since it is a back vowel following a front vowel) anyway?  Could the second syllable go back to some sort of *lEg related to Gk glagos and galakt-?  Also, why does ModE milk (Anglian milc) not have *ch after the high front vowel, since presumably the i goes back to some such form as *meluki-, where the *k was before a front vowel and ought therefore to be palatalized (see Campbell's Old English grammar)?

(Note: someone may have pointed these things out and I just haven't got to their messages yet)

Andrew

SPONSORED LINKS

Online social science degree	Social science course	Social science degree
Social science education	Bachelor of social science	Social science major

---

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

•  Visit your group "cybalist" on the web.
   
•  To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
   cybalist-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
   
•  Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

---