Re: NATLANG: Scary Document
| From: | Tristan McLeay <zsau@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Monday, April 7, 2003, 8:51 |
|---|
On Sun, 6 Apr 2003, John Cowan wrote:
> In NE Central and Ulster dialects, the diphthong "ea" remains at its
> Shakespearean value of [e], though it has become [i] in the rest of Scots
> as well as in English, with the sole (?) exception of the word "great".
> This apparently shifted with the rest, but then moved back in the last
> 17th or early 18th century, probably as a result of dialect mixing.
'steak', 'yea'; and how about the words in -ear like bear? Does that
represent the older stage or did it have another value before, too?
--
Tristan <kesuari@...>
War doesn't prove who's right, just who's left.
- fortune.