Re: Drifting phonemes [was: Re: The AmE 'o' sound]

From: Peter T. Daniels (grammatim_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 11/16/04 

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 13:58:52 GMT

Miguel Carrasquer wrote:
>
> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 13:42:03 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
> <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> >Miguel Carrasquer wrote:
> >
> >> Common Slavic had two nasal vowels *e~ and *o~. When the
> >> first writing systems were developed for Slavic (Glagolitic,
> >> later Cyrillic), these nasal vowel still existed, and were
> >> given separate symbols:
> >> _
> >> /_\
> >> / | \ = e~
> >>
> >> ___
> >> \ /
> >> /|\ = o~
> >>
> >> (the Cyrillic for *e~ developed into Russian <ja>, mirrored
> >> R).
> >
> >Really? Cubberley says (in WWS; the Routledge Slavonic book is still in
> >a box somewhere): Peter the Great's "civil script" (1708-10) "made a
> >start on deleting redundant letters and shapes which were marked as
> >'Church' variants (o, ja <ia lig.>, e˜, ps); confirmed (by omission) the
> >earlier abandonment of some (u <oy>, o˜); fixed in place some earlier
> >shape changes (u <y>, SC, y <bI>); and introduced some new forms (è, ja
> >[rev. R])."
> >
> >Graphically, the new ja seems closer to the old ja than to e˜.
>
> The old ja (i+a ligature), like the je (i+e) ligature, was
> never really popular in Russia. The Novogorodian birch-bark
> documents usually write /ja/ with the "small yus" (i.e.
> <e~>), whether the /ja/ is etymologically */e~/ or */ja/.
> The je~ (> /ja/) and jo~ (> /ju/) ligatures were also hardly
> used. The only common ligature was the i+o (for i+ou) /ju/.
>
> I've always seen Modern Russian <ja> (reversed R) considered
> an alternation of the shape of <e~>, cf. for instance
> http://getup.ru/dir/33/1.shtml, where it says:
>
> JA, poslednjaja, tridcat' tret'ja bukva russkogo alfavita;
> vosxodit k jusu malomu <e~>...
>
> [JA, last, 33rd. letter of the Russian alphabet; goes back
> to "small jus" <e~>]
>
> So the text should read:
>
> "... deleting redundant letters and shapes which were marked
> as 'Church' variants (ô [omega], ja [ia lig.], ps);
> confirmed (by omission) the earlier abandonment of some (/u/
> = <oy>, <o~>); fixed in place some earlier shape changes
> (/u/ = <y>, s^c^ [making it more like <c> and less like what
> it was: a ligature of s^and t],

When Diakonoff came to Chicago (in 1988, for an honorary degree), and
the question of one letter/two segments came up, he pointed out that
[St] is the Leningrad (where he was) pronunciation and [SC] in Moscow --
he smiled at but rejected my suggestion that the more cultured Leningrad
pronunciation was the one that ought to be the commonly taught standard.

> /y/ = <bI> [used to be "hard
> sign"+i], /ja/ = "reversed ja" [simplified from malyj jus]);
> and introduced one new form (è [reversed e]) ... "
>
> I disagree that, graphically. the new ja seems closer to the
> old ja than to e~, but I can't argue that very well in
> e-mail. Consider deleting one (merging two) of the legs:
>
> _ _
> /_\ /_\
> / | \ => | \

I like
   _ __
| / | / |
|/__| => -/-|
         / | 

-- 
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@att.net

Relevant Pages