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

From:John Cowan <cowan@...>
Date:Saturday, May 22, 1999, 20:08
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.