Re: *oy vey*

Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>En réponse à Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>:
>
> >
> > That _vee_ is suspiciously similar to English "fee", which's Swedish
> > cognate
> > _fä_ means "livestock". Has Dutch been vary evil against labiodental
> > fricatives during some period of it's history?
> >
>
>In one word: no, but all other Germanic languages were :)) . Many English
>words
>beginning with "f" have a cognate in "v" in Dutch. In German the cognate is
>also written with "v", but since in German "v" stands for /f/, it doesn't
>count :)) . But the German orthography inclines me to say that what Dutch
>did
>was basically keeping voiced labiodentals where other languages devoiced
>them :)) .
Are you sure about that? At any rate, German orthographic {v} is frequently
from earlier *p, eg _Vater_ cognate of _father_ and Latin _pater_. German
orthographic {w} used to be [w], like in English cognates (cf _Wasser_ vs
English _water_). And isn't the Dutch cognate of _father_ _vader_? That
initial "v" must be from common Germanic *f.

                                                       Andreas

_________________________________________________________________
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com