Re: Scientist's etymology vs. scientific etymology

> >
> Point for consideration (?): If /a/ is always of foreign origin
> (since the original PIE didn't have /a/),

Not always, cf eg. Latin schwa secundum.

> why then didn't /a/ of foreign languages become borrowed as /e/ or /o/
> or some other native sound? As an example, after English lost the
> phonemes /y/ and /y:/, Old French /y:/ was borrowed as /eu/ (> /iu/ >
> /ju:/)(as in <pure>) and Old French /y/ was borrowed as /u/ (as in
> <punish>). So if Latin, being a descendant of PIE, didn't have any
> /a/ inherited from PIE, why then did they adopt an entirely new
> unfamiliar sound?

Because /a/ is a more 'natural' sound than /ü/. Only few vowel
inventories have the latter, almost all have the former; it is a
naturally given extreme of the vowel triangle. English took a road
comparable to that of PPIE: some /a/'s became /e/, some became /o/,
and the empty space of /a/ was filled with foreign loans, eg. 'spa'.


Torsten