Re: OT: Semi-OT: Romance Comparisons
| From: | Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Sunday, April 25, 2004, 13:24 |
|---|
At 13:00 24.4.2004, Joe wrote:
>Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
>
>At 00:52 24.4.2004, Roger Mills wrote:
>
>Interesting-- could it have to do with ancient Celtic and/or later
>Germanic
>...snip...
>IIRC it is mostly a question of which vowels merge with each other:
>in western /U/ merges with /o/, while in eastern it merges with /u/.
>
>What about Sardinian? I believe it merges with /u/ there. But
>Sardinian's weird.
Yes, Sardo is of its own kind. There length was simply lost,
so that Latin /i/ merged with /i:/ rather than with /e:/, while /e:/
itself merged with /e/, and likewise with the back vowels.
Actually it is Eastern Romance which is weird, since /U/ merges
with /u/ while /I/ merges with /e/ just as in Western Romance.
/BP 8^)
--
B.Philip Jonsson mailto:melrochX@melroch.se (delete X)
Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
(Tacitus)