Re: Dutch questions

On 08/05/06, Roger Mills <rfmilly@...> wrote:
> Rob Haden wrote:
> > On Sun, 7 May 2006 19:55:20 -0400, Roger Mills <rfmilly@...> wrote:
> >
> > >Here's the list from my "Kramers' Engels Woordenboek" (23d ptg., 1953)--
> > >it actually uses IPA, though it appears to be British-oriented...
>
> Correcting the typos:
> > >
> > >Dutch:> >bed [E] -- _fat_
>
> > >_draai_ [a:i] -- a of fast + ee of free
> .................
> > Thanks!  Yeah, that's pretty much the same as what Wikipedia has.  What
> > I'm really looking for, though, is a table of *historical* correspondences
> > with English (and other West Germanic languages)....
>
> Oh. Somewhere I do have a history of Dutch, but I've never read it totally
> nor with great concentration. A few I've noticed along the way:
>
> Germ. Haus, Du. huis, Eng. house (also mouse, louse, thousand)= *u: IIRC;
> perhaps Zaun 'fence', tuin 'garden', town ('enclosure'??)
>From *u: indeed.
> Germ. Straum, Du. stroom, Eng. stream  < *??? maybe ?*o:?? also
> Baum-boom-beam (?) and Traum-  droom - dream
>From *au, actually.
> Germ. Stein, Du. steen, Engl. stone  < *a: IIRC
The English "long o" comes from OE a:, but that sound in turn derives
from *ai. So German now has much the original quality for both *au and
*ai.

> OTOH mein - mijn - mine; Zeit, tijd, tide (older 'time'); scheinen schijnen
> shine
>From *i: ... this is comparable to au/ui/ou
> Engl. and Germ. initial /S-/, Du. "sch-" /sx-/ or /sX-/ < *sk-
>
> Vocalization of */l/: kalt - koud - cold; Alt-  oud - old; Wald, woud,
> wood(?) or archaic wold? ; probably halten houden hold; OTOH Schulter vs.
> schouder shoulder.
>
> Assorted others of whose regularity I'm not certain, like (funf) vijf, five
> or zehn, tien, ten; sterben, sterven 'die', starve (and Du, kerven Eng.
> carve); weissen, weten 'know', arch. to wit
fünf, vijf, five shows the Ingvæonic loss of nasals before fricatives
with compensatory lengthening. English did it quite thoroughly, German
quite thoroughly did none, Dutch quite thoroughly did a mixture of the
two. Also De. gans vs En. goose, don't know the Dutch form. I don't
know why it's fünf in German, and not finf or fimf (which I think is
dialectal?), but probably some otherwise non-standard influence from
the consonants?

sterben vs sterven vs starve shows the English Er > ar change that was
discussed here not so long ago ... Something similar probably shows up
in words like "farm" and "star" but I don't know the cognates in Nl.
or De.

> Lots of irregularities probably, since all three standard langs. are a
> mixture of various old dialects.
Indeed. And the effects of following consonatns on vowels will do a lot!

--
tristan.

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