Re: Darkness

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" <richard@...> wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> Torsten:
> > > > *dh- > *þ- > *f- is commonly accepted for Italic,
> > > > and many of its
> > > > speakers were grown-ups. I can't remember if it's
> > > > Kuhn or Vennemann
> > > > who posits an Italic-like *dh > þ, d > *d, *t > *t
> > > > for some dialect on
> > > > the Rhine, from where it might have been picked up.
> Sean Whalen:
> > > I don't know exactly what you're implying.
>
> > > In Germanic th>f is not regular, therefore the
> > > alternation in this root needs some specific
> > > explanation.
> Torsten:
> > These languages appear as substrates in Germanic, therefore they
> > don't have to be analyzed as Germanic.
>
> So? We're not looking at a loan from one of these languages.

You must have sources of information I don't have access to.

> You seem to be suggesting that a substrate was undergoing þ > f as
> the speakers were Germanicised, and that the change took this word
> with it.

I am.

> You might as well accept it as a failed sound change within Germanic

Same thing. Someone failed, and they are members of a group. Sometime
we can identify the group, sometimes not.

> (or anticipation of English Cockney, if you prefer),
> and compare it > to Modern English _pottage_ > _porridge_

or ME parrok > paddock; by some coincidence both are Nordwestblock
(initial p-).

> or rustic Latin ae > e:.

Roman history started with two groups, patricians and plebeians,
originating in something ethnic. Suetonius mentions that one of the
emperor Claudius' ancestors, Clodius, had been tribune of the people.
We might as well identify the Latin au/o shibboleth with those two
groups, patrician *au vs. plebeian *o.


Torsten