> I believe the skeleton is n-w-b, nawab with -awa- contract to -â- as in
> Semitic languages. Later in Egyptian, vowels in contact with nasals were
> rounded - â to û.
> ===========
> On what grounds do you change the skeleton of a word ?
> there is complete agreement for n_b_w in sources.
>
> As for *awa > *â (=impossible)
> Egyptian m_w_.t "mother"
> Reconstruction : mawat
> Coptic : maau.
> Hence refuted.
>
> Arnaud
> =================
Vowels are partially indicated in Egyptian: <d> stands for pre-Egyptian /da/
or /di; <t> stand for /du/.
==============
You have the right to change the order of phonemes in a word
as in n_b_w,
invent laws that don't work, as is m_w_.t
and invent a fancy theory about Egyptian indicating vowels.
BUT
by doing so, you have just achieved scientific self-destruction.
Arnaud
=================
What do you think <maau> is phonetically? It is /ma:u/.
Patrick
============
Interesting question.
Actually a reduplicated letter is a way of indicating glottal stop,
so
a probably better reconstruction that mawa.-t
is *according to me* ma?wa.-t "mother"
?w being a single phoneme.
So coptic maau is to be read [ma?w]
I think the root is the same as in :
- PIE maH2ter "mother",
- Egyptian m_s "to beget, to bear"
The root should be m_?-
either suffixed by -w or -t.
The change *t > s in Egyptian is regular.
*p t k > f s x.
Now,
an objection to Egyptian m_s being *m_?_s
is that ? is never written.
But,
In Coptic, Moses can be written Môu-ses
Reduplicated vowel again !!
hence [mo:?ses]
Glottal stop is there.
If we go back to maH2ter,
I suppose that the root is in fact m_H2t-
and the cut maH2-ter is false.
As far as I am concerned I consider
maH2t-er to be a participle of verb m_H2-t
the bearing one > the mother.
and -r/-n alternation is
maH2t-er = nominative
maH2t-en = oblique cases
Arnaud
=================