Re: s-stems in Slavic and Germanic

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Andrew Jarrette" <anjarrette@...>
wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "bmscotttg" <BMScott@> wrote:

>> Unfortunately, all that survives from the earliest period of
>> Old West Low Franconian, beyond a great deal of onomastic
>> material in Latin texts, is the following remarkable West
>> Flemish sentence of the eleventh century, found in England
>> in the binding of a Latin manuscript:

>> hebban olla vogala nestas hagunnan hinase hi(c) (e)nda thu
>> w(at) (u)nbidan (w)e nu

> Do the parentheses indicate that the letters are present but nearly
> illegible, or that the letters are completely illegible or absent
> (and hence that they could be any other letters)?

I'd say 'present by nearly to entirely illegible', but you can judge
for yourself:

<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Hebban_olla_vogala_fragment.jpg>

<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Hebban_olla_vogala_overview.jpg>

In the second one the relavant passage is in the second and third
lines under the inkblot near the righthand edge. The five lines
there are usually read 'quid expectamus nunc. Abent omnes uolucres
nidos inceptos nisi ego et tu. Hebban olla uogala nestas hagunnan
hinase hic enda thu uuat unbidan uue nu. Rector celi nos exaudi ut
dignare nos saluare.'

Brian