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Re: Leute (was...)

From:Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>
Date:Wednesday, July 21, 2004, 16:53
J. 'Mach' Wust wrote:

>>But it isn't /'loi.te/ that becomes /lIt/ rather the form which >>[loe.t@] *developed from* became [lIt], which is a different thing. > > > 'Litt' corresponds to Middle High German (which was mostly based on > Alemannic and Swabian dialects) 'liut(e)', which was pronounced [ly:t(@)]. > Many Swiss German dialects still have the same form (and as Philip Newton's > pointed out, similar forms are found in Plattdütsch). In Basel, the Swiss > region next to the Alsace, there's also unrounding of front vowels, and > people from Basel have told me that the dialect spoken in the Alsace is very > similar to the one of Basel. > > I'm not quite sure whether the actual standard form developed from that very > form, since the modern standard is mainly based on dialects of Saxony and > Austria.
Certainly. MHG /i:/ was diphthongized to /ai/, and MHG to /u:/ to /au/, so it stands to reason that MHG /y:/ became /2y/ (and later /oy/) as well. What surprises me most with the Alsatian form is the shortness and the open quality! -- /BP 8^) -- B.Philip Jonsson mailto:melrochX@melroch.se (delete X) Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant! (Tacitus)