>You're being misled by orthography, I'm afraid. It's
>essentially identical to OHG <wīh>, apart from the retained
>case marker in the Gothic: <ei> is simply the Gothic
>spelling of /Ä«/. It's <Weihe> that's undergone sound
>changes.
Indeed. I thought weihs would represent an [ej] pronunciation,
not an [i:]. I stand corrected.
--
(NB: today's German pronunciation varies according to regional
dialects/subdialects; along with the standard [aj], [ej], [aej],
[ae-e], [&j] etc.). German orthogr. <ei> and <ey> is warranted
since in various regions, incl. Berlin & Vienna, this diphtong
can turn into a real [e:], e.g. [tsve: kle:n&] instead of [tsvaj
klajn&], or Mainz [me:nts] instead of [majnts]. At the same
time, in some dialects the old [i:] lives on (esp. in low Germ.
& Swiss Alemanian), e.g. mein- in the Cologne area is [mi(:)n(g)],
Rhein [ri:n].)