Re: CHAT: Humpty Dumpty (was: con-childish taunts)

Tom Wier scripsit:

> Hmm, that's interesting, because I was expecting it to be more
> West-Germanic than that.  Modern German has "der Bach", which
> underwent the expected soundchange /k/ --> /x/.
Yes, but you're ignoring the vowel.  Old Norse had "bekkr", with
nominative ending "-r".  The OE word was "baec", with expected
fronting a -> ae compared to OHG "bah" /bax/.  This is one of those
cases where the North Gmc. word completely replaced its native
equivalent in (dialectal) English.

The root is PIE in the sense "flee", "flight", though all Germanic
uses already mean "stream, brook".  But Lithuanian has "begti",
Church Slavonic "bezati", Greek "phebesthai" all meaning "flee".

--
John Cowan                                      cowan@ccil.org
                e'osai ko sarji la lojban.