Re: PIE voiced aspirates (?)

> > That's interesting. So could /w/ > /v/ in Latin have
> > originated under Etruscan influence?
>
> I would be very reluctant to propose that. As others have pointed
> out, this particular change is quite common in languages. In
> Vespasian's reign, some Greek inscriptions render the emperor's name
> with Besp- as opposed to the usual Ouesp-, so it appears that some
> Greeks already heard Latin /w/ (presumably as uttered by legionaries)
> as closer to a voiced approximant (or even a stop) than to a
> semivowel. But I know of no evidence that the Tuscan Latin spelling
> of Baleria, Baro, Barnaeus, etc. (some 100-150 years before
> Vespasian) spread beyond its little enclave to the wider world of
> Latin. It might be labeled a "precocious" example of [w] > [B]/[v]
> but it is very likely detached from the general fricativization of
> Latin /w/ which we observe later.

For that, we need a substrate which has /v/, but no /w/. Greek
fulfills that criterion and was the language of the growing class of
Christians on Rome. If a large part of the underclass of the Roman
empire were Latinized Greek-speakers from the eastern part of the
empire that would explain also why the most conservative Romance
languages are found in Sardinia, not in Italy.


Torsten