Timeline for What was going on with "quha", "quhat" and the like in Scots and English?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 25, 2015 at 22:30 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | @user18036 We don't actually know for sure at what point /xw/ became /hw/ even in Old English (or the other Germanic languages). Certainly /xw/ was the Proto-Germanic pronunciation. The Scots pronunciation as /xw/ could be a remnant of (pre-?)Old English, or it could perhaps be influenced by Norse, where /xw/ was almost certainly retained longer. | |
| Sep 18, 2012 at 21:32 | vote | accept | CommunityBot | moved from User.Id=18036 by developer User.Id=3995 | |
| Sep 1, 2012 at 23:56 | comment | added | StoneyB on hiatus | @ymar Yes, but the article in question is about Scots. Scots /xw/, as far as I can make out, is a regional form of ME; and the article doesn't tell us when Early Scots /xw/ became Modern Scots /hw/ (cf TimLymington's answer). | |
| Sep 1, 2012 at 20:30 | comment | added | user18036 | @StoneyB Really? I have always thought /hw/ is believed to be the Old English pronunciation. And the Wiki article seems to confirm that. | |
| Sep 1, 2012 at 16:59 | comment | added | StoneyB on hiatus | @tchrist Yes, I consulted that. Unhappily, it doesn't tell us quhen these shifts occurred. | |
| Sep 1, 2012 at 16:38 | comment | added | tchrist♦ | See Wikipedia’s article on The phonological history of Scots. | |
| Sep 1, 2012 at 15:39 | comment | added | StoneyB on hiatus | @ymar My understanding is that Scots [xw] evolved into [hw] - I imagine under English influence - but I don't know when. | |
| Sep 1, 2012 at 14:22 | comment | added | user18036 | OK, thank you very much. The [xw] explains a lot; I didn't know about this pronunciation. The Scots I've heard used [hw] or [w]. | |
| Sep 1, 2012 at 14:17 | comment | added | StoneyB on hiatus | @ymar Beyond my scholarship, but whatever his long "o" was (since he uses the same sound in L. quo). I note that "who" becomes "wha" in later dialectal spellings, so it follows a different course than in English. | |
| Sep 1, 2012 at 13:55 | comment | added | user18036 | Was the author's vowel in "who" [ɔ]? | |
| Sep 1, 2012 at 13:51 | history | answered | StoneyB on hiatus | CC BY-SA 3.0 |