Old Valthungian: Difference between revisions

There is very little extant text in Old Valthungian, and what does exist is quite variable, but this is a “regularlised” version of the orthography used at the time around 850aD, with notes where there are variants.

|valign="top"| '''''u'''lbvand'''u'''s'' ‘rhinocerus’<br />'''''u'''bvils'' ‘evil’<br />'''''u'''nþ'' ‘until’

|valign="top"| ''presp'''y'''terij'' ‘presbytery’<br />''h'''y'''hsopus'' ‘hyssop’<br />''þ'''y'''mjam'' ‘incense’

|align="left" valign="top"| It is likely that this was still a separate phoneme in Old Valthungian from the umlaut of '''u''', though some of the means of transcription overlapped a bit. This phoneme was used only in borrowings from the Greek, and after the Old Valthungian period, these two phonemes had completely merged.<br />Our intermediate transcription shows '''ÿ''' for the letter representing Gothic '''𐍅'''/'''w''' from Greek '''υ'''. The exact pronunciation is unknown, but it seems likely that it was differentiated from '''eu''' (the i-umlaut of /u/) in Old Valthungian. These two sounds had merged by the Middle Valthungian period.

|align="left" valign="top"| kh, ch, x, χ

|valign="top"| '''''K'''ristus'' ‘Christ’<br />''ew'''k'''aristja'' ‘eucharist’<br />''kate'''k'''ijns'' ‘remembrance’

|align="left" valign="top"| This Greek borrowing, which was incorporated into the Gothic alphabet as '''𐍇''', had merged phonologically with '''k''' by the Old Valthungian period, but was occasionally still emphasized with '''h''' or even with the Greek letter '''χ''' in positions which were not naturally aspirated. Indeed, '''h''' was sometimes added to segments which ''were'' naturally aspirated, as also happened with '''p''' and '''t'''.