W dniu 2011-08-07 19:27, stlatos pisze:
> OE heorl \ eorl corr. to L Heruli , so that is one with ev., and ev.
> that the version w/out h- became much more common. The giants Ymir ,
> Hymir , and Gymir show the variation.
Much more common indeed. <heorl> is a late 10th-century hapax, while
<eorl> occurs hundreds of times in Anglo-Saxon texts of all ages, so
obviously their status is very unequal and nothing justifies placing
<heorl> berore <eorl>, as you do above. At the end of Old English,
Cockney-style h-dropping was already beginning to spread in England,
especially in Mercia, and we have examples of both <h>-omission and
unhistorical <h>-insertion. All that has precious little to do with the
interpretation of Germanic names recorded hundreds of years earlier.
Incidentally, the "Heruli" were first mentioned in th 3rd century, when
even upper-class Romans surely dropped their aitches all the time.
Ymir anf Gymir were nor even the same fellow.
Piotr