Re: [tied] Albanian

Andrew Jarrette schrieb:

>
>
> There's something I've always found very remarkable about Albanian: the
> fact that Indo-European *s in initial position before vowels evolved to
> the Albanian consonant <gj>, which I understand is a voiced palatal
> plosive. To me, it is perhaps the most unlikely phonetic change I have
> ever heard of, yet it occurred (I actually sometimes wondered whether
> Albanian words with <gj-> truly originated from IE words with *s-). Can
> anyone offer a reasonable hypothesis as to how a voiceless alveolar
> sibilant can evolve to a voiced palatal plosive? It would be very
> reassuring and satisfying to me if someone had an explanation for this
> change which to me seems to defy the laws of nature!
>
> Andrew

I cann offer you examples in Rumanian slang where the "sh" became
"j"(consonantal "j" as in Jim) . In the same manner I can understand
the change of "s" to "sh" in Albanian and from this "sh" to "j"
which could yeld "gj". To me this is appears to be one of the oldest
phonetic change in Albanian

thus, s > sh > j > gj appears understable to me now even _if_, and I
underline here _if_ there is an another phonetic path.


Alex