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?
We? Evil? :)))

> 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 :)) .
So, who is evil, hmm?

But seriously, it's not so easy. In Dutch, we have not
two, but three labiodental fricatives: "f", "v" and
"w"...
fee = fairy
vee = cattle
wee = Lat. vae (the subject header of this thread, and
so they came bach were they originally came from...)

Theoretically, "f" is unvoiced, "w" is voiced, and "v"
is somewhere in the middle. Practically, the "v"
usually merges with one of the other two. Like Dirk's
mother, my pronunciation is rather like /f/, since my
Dutch was spoiled by living 13 years in Amsterdam :)

BTW, it's remarkable how many threads end up in a
discussion about the Dutch language :)))

IJzeren Jan

=====
"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought,
wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that
happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great
comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe." --- J.
Michael Straczynski

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