Re: Wuz

It is probably more complicated that stated by Torsten.

As regards the word "wasp"

Standard French has "guêpe" [gep]

but Northern Artois French has [vep].

My grand-father said [vep] not **[gep].

And Northern French is more likely to be Germanic-influenced

than the rest of French dialects.

Some places in Pas-de-Calais have kept [w] down to modern-times

from either LAtin v or Germanic w.

Including le Waast < wakon or wast- that is being discussed in other mails.

----- Original Message -----

From: tgpedersen

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 8:50 PM

Subject: [Courrier indésirable] [tied] Re: Wuz

--- In cybalist@... s.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@ ...> wrote:
>
> But the /w/ > /g, v/ dichotomy is due to regional
> and/or diachronic considerations, right?

AFAIK Germanic loans in Old French (and in Western Romance in general)
had /w/ which later > /gW/ (> /g/), while Romance words had /v/, a
situation not unlike that of English. Words like *vad-/wad- "ford" and
*vas-/*was- "wetland" existed in both Romance and Germanic, so I
expect there would have been some hesitancy wrt choosing between /w/
and /v/ in them.

Torsten