Re: Grimm's Law

--- In conlang@y..., John Cowan <jcowan@R...> wrote:

> The shifts p > pf, t > ts, and k > kx happen in turn as you go from
> north (Low) to south (High).  The k > kx shift doesn't happen until
> you are way up in the Swiss Alps, which is why it didn't make it into
> modern standard German.  But in Swiss German you see /kxy/ for standard
> /ku/ 'cow'.
Sounds like your Swiss Alp dweller had too many of those funky
mushrooms that grow on cowpats.  ;-)

"Cow" is indeed /k_hu:/ in High German, but /kxy/ doesn't sound right
for any of the multitudinous Swiss dialects.

In Züritüütsch, the most common and most "normal" dialect, it's
/Xu@/, written |Chue|, which might have given you the idea of an /y/.
The ugly and linguistically insensible but common practice of writing
the schwa as |ä| to distinguish Swiss German writing from High German
would remove that ambiguity: |Chuä|.

In other dialects, it's /k_hUA/ (Bündnarisch) or /k_h}@/
(Baasler-diitsch) or something similar.  The schwa-offglide seems to be
more or less constant.

That aside, your point is valid:  Many Swiss German as well as some
Austrian dialects do indeed have lots of /kX/, which curdles the blood
of most Germans.  ;-)


-- Christian Thalmann  (Swiss lowland dweller ;-)

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