Re: Rozwadowski's Change

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Torsten" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Torsten" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> > >
> > > [...]
> > >
> > > Which [Grimm's shift] happened around the beginning of our era, according to
> > > Kuhn's data.
> > > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/29016
> > > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/34439
> >
> > If memory serves, the Ems is the Amisia in Tacitus, so Emer-gewe is
> > to be expected; the form Ems must have had no vocalic extension
> > after the stem, *ames- or whatever it was, thus no rhotacism. With
> > Coriovallum/Heerlen and the like we have Celtic/Gmc. doublets which
> > cannot reliably date the shift, since the Germans did not have to
> > live there DURING the shift.

Haste makes waste. I should have checked Emergewe in Google Books before guessing. The prevailing view is that it is a Schreibfehler; one source cites as old forms of Emsgau: Emisga, Emisgowe, Emisgewe, and the "ganz schlechte Schreibart" Emergewe. Some details of the text are given by H. Jaekel, "Zur Lexicologie des Altfriesischen", PBB 15:532-6 (1891):

"Aus lanthura [i.e. 'land-tax'] hat der schreiber Lanthusa [a phantom place-name] gemacht. Er verwechselt s und r sehr haeufig; so schreibt er z.b. 'videmus' statt 'videmur', 'Wisaha' statt 'Wiraha', 'More' fuer 'Mose', 'Wacheringe' fuer 'Wachesinge', 'Emergewe' fuer 'Emesgewe', 'Hunergewe' fuer 'Hunesgewe', 'Heterheim' fuer 'Hetesheim'."

Thus we cannot use Emergewe and Hunergewe as evidence for some "Verner-free" area.

> Objection, they would, or at least within a sufficiently small distance that it was known to them; only as long as Grimm's law functioned as a sociological marker between the incoming elite and the locals would Grimm's law be applied to local place names, after the hierarchical relationship is established the upper class will feel they can 'afford' to pronounce local names the local way; this means only backwaters get to keep the original non-Grimm names. Cf.
> http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/Shibbolethisation.html

I was thinking along the lines of York (old Eboracum 'Yewplace'). The initial /y/ was produced regularly in Old Norse, but not when they dominated the place. It was the name of a FOREIGN place when the change occurred. Similarly, Coriovallum could have been known to Germans before the shift, and a foreign place when the /k/ became the /x/ later reflected as /h/ in Heerlen.

> For a similar example
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diepholz
> vs. eg.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_van_Diepholt
>
> The German place name should properly be either Low German Diepholt or High German Tiefholz; only -holt, recognizable as "wood" or "forest" has been 'translated' into High German, whereas diep-, which makes dubious sense as "deep forest", was opaque and has therefore not been translated.

This sort of thing is about as rare as dirt. Where I live, the locals have half-translated Kaffeeklatsch into "coffee clutch". The first element was easily recognized; the second was not, so it was deformed into something familiar, not translated.

> > Indeed if the shift occurred just as the Germans were expanding
> > into the NWB, we would expect all, or nearly all, of Kuhn's
> > anlautend-/p/ words to have exact anlautend-/f/ equivalents.
>
> No, as I said, only as long as Grimm is still a living process in the language community would it be applied to local place names, not after.

I am referring to APPELLATIVES, and if the Grimm shift were still in progress during expansion into the NWB area, we should have had scads of doublets, just as we do in High/Low German border areas.

> > As for LL <toacula>, remodelling after <novacula> and similar words
> > explains the /k/.
>
> Hm.

My session is running out of time. Further comments on Latin/Romance /k/ from Gmc. /x/ will follow in another posting.

DGK