Re: p <-> kw

Thomas Leigh scripsit:

> On the subject of kw > p, I'm surprised no one mentioned Romanian, which
> I thought was one of the most famous languages for that change,e.g. Lat.
> "aqua" (water) > Rom. "apa", Lat. "nocte" (night, abl. case) > Rom.
> "noapte", Lat. "octem" (eight) > Rom. "opt", etc. Romanian also has gw >
> b, e.g. Lat. "lingua" (tongue, language) > Rom. "limba".
Hmm.  Perhaps if some other Eastern Romance lgs had survived, we would be
talking of P-Romance and Q-Romance.  (Any takers?)

> However, there are some early borrowings into Gaelic
> where they changed an original p into c, for whatever reason.
The story that when Patrick (a p-word) first came to Ireland he was the
slave of four masters is perhaps derived from the Irish not being able
to say his p-initial name and replacing it with something (I can't find
the hypothetical form of this in Old Irish on the next anywhere) that
appeared to have "four" in it.

--
My confusion is rapidly waxing          John Cowan
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