Re: The etymology of herold

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>
> W dniu 2010-01-20 03:19, dgkilday57 pisze:
>
> > One problem I have is that <t> might represent /d/. Also <ei>, if an
> > actual diphthong, where Proto-Gmc. already had /i:/. And <h> might
> > conceivably be Celtic /p/ on its way to zero. That is, the text could be
> > Illyrian or Celtic as well as Germanic.
>
> One additional difficulty is that about 200 BC (Proto-)Germanic *x would
> still have been a velar fricative, even word-initially. I'd expect it to
> have been represented as Etruscan/Raetic /x ~ kH/ (the "psi" character)
> rather than /h/.

Yes, it seems to have sounded more like /kH/ to the Greeks and Romans, most of the time. One who favors a Gmc. reading of the helmet might argue that there was variation in this sound, and in the way it was heard, from one time and place to another. It is striking that Caesar has <reno> 'reindeer' while centuries later the Frankish king gets transcribed as <Clovis>.

After re-reading N. van Wijk, "Zur relativen Chronologie urgermanischer Lautgesetze" (PBB 28:243-253, 1903), I must retract my objection about <ei>. The Common Gmc. monophthongization */ei/ > */i:/ was likely coincident with the /i/-umlaut of */e/ to */i/, the former amounting to tautosyllabic umlaut. And the latter was not yet complete in Tacitus's time, to judge from <Segime:rus> and the like. Thus Gmc. could well have retained original */ei/ into the 1st cent. CE.

DGK