Ed Cryer wrote:
>
> "Will Parsons" <oudeis@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> news:slrng21tuu.1rmk.oudeis@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> Evertjan. wrote:
>>> And methinks not without phonetic reason.
>>> And not only into Greek also into Germanic.
>>>
>>> German Kaiser, Dutch Keizer, both meaning Emperor.
>>>
>>> also:
>>>
>>> OldEnglish: casere
>>> middleEnglish: kaiser, keiser [reentry from the German, it it said]
>>> OldNorwegian: keisari
>>> Swedish: kejsare
>>> Gothic [from the Greek] kaisar
>>
>> Yes. I think the Dutch and Scandinavian forms, and perhaps even the
>> Old
>> English forms derive from low German. I would guess that the Dutch
>> form is
>> a relatively recent adoption from German, otherwise I would expect the
>> diphthong to be monophthongized to [e:], yielding something like
>> *Keezer,
>> rather than Keizer. In any case, the German form is evidence not only
>> of
>> the old pronunciation of Caesar with hard C, but also the preservation
>> of
>> AE pronounced as a diphthong, which is more remarkable, since AE
>> appears to
>> have transitioned to the same sound as E much earlier than the
>> softening of
>> C before E & I. (This can be seen clearly in the Spanish form "cielo"
>> from
>> "caelum", which has the same form as it would have if it had come from
>> an
>> original *celum (with short E).
>>
>> The Old English form "casere" is interesting. If the "a" is long, it
>> would
>> indicate that the word entered the language with a diphthong [ai],
>> which
>> then became [a:], just like the inherited diphthong [ai] from
>> Proto-Germanic, as seen in Old English stán (modern "stone"), as
>> compared
>> with German Stein.
>>
>> The Gothic form gives no such evidence, since "ai" in Gothic, as in
>> Greek,
>> could be pronounced as [e].
>
> The three Latin diphthongs of AE, OE and AU have all reduced to simple
> vowels in Spanish.
>
> caelum >> cielo
> quaerit >> quiere
> poena >> pena
> foedus >> feo
> taurus >> toro
> causa >> cosa
>
> I don't think you can claim that "caelum" must have been pronounced as
> "celum" when it first arrived. The ****ft was part of an overall later
> reduction.
> The addition of "i" in "cielo" is also part of a much later
> rationalisation; it strengthens the simple "e".
Not so! The difference between the "ie" in "cielo" & "quiere", and the
"e"
in "pena" & "feo" is significant, and indicates that while both both AE
and
OE were monophthongized, they continued to be pronounced differently (at
least in the variety of late Latin that gave rise to Spanish). The "ie"
reflex in Spanish is characteristic of an original short E, which
continued
to be distinguished from an original long E by quality, i.e., the short E
had an open quality, like E in English "bed", while long E had a close
quality, like é in French "été". Latin AE fell together with the former,
OE (and short I) with the latter.
--
Will
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