> Hi!
>
> Mainly to Yoon Ha:
>
> There is a list with German sound changes here:
>
>
http://www.linguist.de/Deutsch/gdsmain.html
> (In German).
>
> The problem is that the vowel shifts I searched are
> not given, i.e.,
> those for modern middle German dialects. But I
> recall the rule
> I wanted to tell you now:
>
> The document states the following shift for New High
> German
> from Middle High German (among others)
>
> /i:/ > /aI/
> /u:/ > /aU/
> and
> /EI/ > /aI/
> /OU/ > /aU/
>
> Saarlandian and Palatinian (maybe others) made the
> following shifts:
>
> /i:/ > /aI/
> /u:/ > /u:/
> and
> /EI/ > /E:/ or /e:/
> /OU/ > /a:/
>
> Still one diphthong left... :-) There are still
> other diphthongs as I
> said, but this explains why it is `huus' (`Haus')
> but `baam' (`Baum'):
> the Middle High German words were `huus' and `boum'.
>
>
> Another problem is that in all times, there are
> (reconstructed)
> diphthongs, so your problem remains. I'd probably
> go for a
> simplification then. Something like this:
>
> /au/ > /a:/
> /aI/ > /E:/
> /OI/ > */Q:/ > /E:/
>
> or maybe
> /OI/ > /O:/
>
> ??
>
> I don't know how likely these are, but in Korean
> loan words, at least
> one is common: Taiwan > tae-man.
>
> Then you'd probably get:
> Haus > haasu
> Baum > maasu (? do you have b?)
> klein > kuleenii (if you keep Japanese
> adjective endings)
>
> I'd also drop final -e from most words (typical for
> spoken German
> anyway):
>
> Keule > *keul > koolu
> or keelu
>
> Just suggestions of course! :-)
>
> Eerrm, the abstract of this mail would be: I don't
> know what to do. :-)
>
> **Henrik