Ancestors

Written by Yoïn van Spijk on 2025-01-22 at 19:35

There are two types of words for 9 in the Germanic languages.

Type 1 is g-less:

e.g. German 'neun', Swedish 'nio'.

Type 2 does have a g:

e.g. Dutch 'negen', Frisian 'njoggen'.

You'd think that English 'nine' is type 1, but it used to have a g too: in Old English, it was 'nigon'. It lost its g in Middle English.

So did 'neun' and 'nio' lose their g too?

No, they've never had one.

The g only evolved in the north-western branch of West Germanic.

My new graphic tells you all about it.

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Toot

Written by ppscrv on 2025-01-23 at 09:49

@yvanspijk Do we conjecture some west germanic influence on Faroese? Or that their g was a parallel development?

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Descendants

Written by Yoïn van Spijk on 2025-01-23 at 09:51

@ppscrv Unlike the West Germanic g, the Faroese combination ggj stands for the initial sound of English 'gem'. It was a change similar to Latin 'maiōrem' > Italian 'maggiore'.

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Written by ppscrv on 2025-01-23 at 12:10

@yvanspijk Ah, I see. Thanks.

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