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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: black and white [was: Latin ALBVS, Semitic LBN [was Re: albino]]
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References: <DAB8y5.EH8@statsci.com> <DApzzt.9q4@statsci.com> <3sju4c$71h@gordon.enea.se> <DAs24G.4Bt@statsci.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 19:18:05 GMT
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In article <DAs24G.4Bt@statsci.com>,
Peter Schumacher <peter@statsci.com> wrote:
>sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes:
>
>>Now, would the English "black" be a loan from the Old Norse, then
>>it has gone all the way from white to black...

>>Wouldn't the Old Germanic word rather be *hwiz given that it's "white"
>>in Englisg and "hvid" in Danish? It's "vit" in Swedish.
>
>That sounds better.
>
>>By the way,
>>how come that -z become -t in most living Germanic languages?

The simple answer is "It doesn't."  

>I don't know the physical reason driving the phonetic change, though
>someone studying linguistics once pointed out to me that /s/ and /t/ are
>close. Anyway, /s/ <-> /t/

I've never seen this kind of notation before.  Is it supposed to 
mean /s/ replaces /t/ and /t/ replaces /s/?  /s/ and /t/ are in
free variation (in which case, they shouldn't be treated as independent
phonemse) or otherwise alternate?

> is one of the Low/High markers in West
>Germanic.  It is posited to have happened around 500 AD. Thus modern Low
>West Germanic derivatives such as Dutch and English (and probably Frisian)
>have "wit/white" and "foot" (what's the Dutch?), whereas High West
>Germanic, i.e., German today, has "weiss" and "Fuss". Your examples
>suggest that the same thing happened in North Germanic?

	Nothing of the sort happened:  the Germanic stem is probably
*hwit-.  In the 2. Lautverschiebung, West Germanic /t/ went to /c/ 
(generally written 'z(z)' in MHG)--and sometimes thence to /s/--inter-
vocalically and initially.

	So the -t in the above forms is preserved from Germanic; the
Danish "d" is the result of a later consonant weakening.


-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
