Re: The Origins of Zürich...


Brian M. Scott kirjoitti:

On 2 Jan 2007 02:30:25 -0800, <phoglund@xxxxxx> wrote in
<news:1167733825.561832.185710@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
in sci.lang:

Heidi Graw kirjoitti:

Explain to me how one gets from Toricum to Ziurichi.

Elementary: zweite Lautverschiebung plus i-Umlaut. I am no historical
linguist, but this belongs really to the elementary course of German
historical linguistics - the one everybody takes.

The -um in the end is only required by Latin, the relevant part is
Toric-.

Actually <Turic->. And in Late Latin the final /m/ was
lost; by the time in question, the name would have been
something like ['tUrIkU], possibly even ['torIkU], with a
very close [o].

Anyway, my point was to show that there is nothing mystical about this
Turicum into Zürich thing, and that the whole story can in fact be
understood and applied quite easily - that science, including
linguistic science, is not about mystics, but about making things
ordered, manageable and graspable. But of course, Heidi Graw prefers it
the mystical way.

.