exeyel ([info]exeyel) wrote in [info]linguistics,
@ 2008-05-03 21:52:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Linguistic Anthropology - W, J, and V in German
I'm trying to track down some specific information (or general even) regarding how certain Latin characters came to be used for particular sound in German and some more information that goes further back into the history of the language.

When are the first recorded uses of the Latin character W for German words traced back to? Was this always used to represent a sound similar to the English V or, as some linguists from about 100 years ago suggest, that it represented a UU sound (not sure on the exact pronunciation)? As far as the spoken language I have never encountered any cases of an actual English W (as in would) apart from loan words, is there/was there historically any sound similar?

Similarly, when were the characters J (as an English Y sound) and V (as an English F) sound adopted?

Thank you, and any books/articles/web sites/comments/thoughts would be appreciated as well.

(Post a new comment)


[info]bwillsouth
2008-05-04 04:29 am UTC (link)
Keine Ahnung, uuann diese Buchstaben zuerst in Betreib uuaren, aber meiner Meinung nach können uuir ohne sie auskommen. Na ia.

(I think some of the W in English and German are cognates, like wild vs. wild, and I *think* that in most cases the letter J came into use in Europe where Latin used I, and these contexts just happened to align with French /Z/ (earlier /dZ/, from which English borrowed the usage) and Spanish /x/ etc. So it was possibly simultaneous? I want to say it also corresponded with the introduction of miniscule scripts, but I might be wrong.)

(Reply to this)

[info]schwarzinexile
2008-05-04 06:15 am UTC (link)
J and I used to be the same letter, and J was picked to represent the consonantal use of J/I, and I served as a vowel. German kept the realization of J as Y, and the Romance languages used it where Latin had consonant I/J, which in most of the languages had drifted into a /dZ/ or /Z/ sound, like bwillsouth said. In Spanish it later drifted again, turning into a /x/.
The Latin consonant U/V had by then drifted from a /w/ sound to a /β/ or /v/ sound, and most languages borrowing the Latin alphabet used U/V to represent /v/. Later V was adopted to represent the consonant, with U representing the vowel. Because U/V was already being used to represent a different sound, W (originally, like you said, UU) was adopted by the Germanic languages to represent /w/. In German this also drifted to /v/.
Not sure on the chronology of all this, though.

(Reply to this)

Create an Account
Forgot your login?
Login w/ OpenID
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…