--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
>
> On 2008-11-02 20:34, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > English does that for yester-day vs. Germ. gestern, yield vs. geld,
> > but is this regular, or limited to a few words?
>
> Regular, as explained by Brian, but -- more importantly -- there's no
> initial glide in the Old English words for "Jute" and "Jutish". They
> began with the diphthong e:o- ~ i:o- ~ i:u- < *eu-.
>
> Piotr
>
I think one has to be careful about the Old English forms in this
case. Spellings with <iu-> can sometimes stand for /ju:-/, as in
<Iu:de:as> "the Jews", and in <iuc>, <iung>, <iu:>, alternative
spellings for <geoc> "yoke", <geong> "young", <geo:> "formerly"; one
also finds <ioc>, <iong>, and <io> for these same words, all with Gmc
*j-; also the word <ge:oc> "help, support, rescue; safety;
consolation" is sometimes spelt <e:oc>, and the word <i:esend>
"viscera" is also spelt <ge:sen>; one may conclude from these
variations that it is at least possible, if not plausible, that these
OE spellings of the tribal name "Jutes" represent a word that had *j-
in Germanic (and which might have been imperfectly transmitted to the
non-Jutish Angles and Saxons, who might have spelt it also imperfectly
according to their conventions).
Andrew