Re: I need help explaining basic linguistic concepts to a lay person

Heidi Graw wrote:

Both IE *bh- and *dh- in initial positions yield a Latin f- (cf.
stems fu- (fuit, futurus, etc) from *bheu- (Grk phu-, Skt bhu), and
fe- (fecit), from *dheH- (Grk tithemi, Skt dha:).


Neeraj, from my limited knowledge of Germanic languages, the dh is
sounded out as th.  For example:  Heidhi is sounded out as Heithi.


I'm sorry, but this is meaningless (I suppose you're trying to say that
some germanic language writes 'dh' where it has the sound of english 'th').

Am I to understand that the Latin took both the bh and dh to sound
out as f?   So, if a Latin speaker were to see the word Heidhi,
they'd pronounce it as Heifi?


No. If a latin reader were to see the word 'Heidhi', he'd probably
pronounce it like the english 'HAYED-he', because that's what yhose 6
letters would represent in his alphabet.

What Neeraj is referring to is the historical development that turned
hypothetical bh- and dh- (pronounced something like b'HA and d'HA) into
f- (pronounced f-) in latin, that is, during latin's process of
evolution and before it was recognisable latin (by which time it had f-
already).

Moreover, as the '-' indicates, he's referring to initial occurrences of
bh and dh, not to medial or final ones.

I would very much like to know more about how the dh came about to
assume that Latin f. I can understand how the bh could end up
sounding like an f.  That dh, however, appears somewhat problematic.


No problem at all:

d'HA > d > th (as in 'the') > th (as in 'thin') > f.

I don't know whether these were the developments, but that's one
possible route.
Without proper notation, this is very tricky to present.
--
am

laurus : rhodophyta : brezoneg : smalltalk : stargate
.

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