Re: Roumania...

Raymond A. Brown scripsit:

> That reminds that 'Rome' in English did change to /ru:m/ during the great
> vowel shift of the Tudor period (IIRC this pronunciation is implied
> somewhere in the Shakespearean corpus)
In the great description of Falstaff's death in _Henry V_:

"He was rheumatic [Rome-atic], and talk'd of the whore of Babylon
[insulting Protestant name for the Pope]".


Which reminds me that the traditional pronunciation of "whore" is
[huR], and many New Yorkers still adhere to it, though [hOR] is
standard, and probably a spelling pronunciation.

> I guess something similar is the case with Romania.  It surely is the
> reason that now the high central vowel is spelt with a-circumflex only in
> the roma^n-  words, i-circumflex being used elsewhere.
Yes, the a-circ is used only in words clearly derived from "Rome".
But I don't think the English vowel shift can be relevant when clearly
the source of "R[o]umania" is French.

--
John Cowan                                      cowan@ccil.org
                e'osai ko sarji la lojban.