Talk:𐌼𐌰𐌹𐌼𐌱𐍂𐌰𐌽𐌰

@Jberkel, una immagine, per favore —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:54, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

 Done

– Jberkel 20:51, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Vowel length

@Mnemosientje I'm confused about the vowel lengths in /mɛːmbrana/. This word has short [ɛ] and long [aː] in Latin; doesn't Gothic have both of these sounds, and spell them identically to long [ɛː] and short [a]? So why would the vowel lengths be flipped around compared to Latin (and how would we know)?--Urszag (talk) 18:40, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

@Urszag You are right, I clearly didn't put much thought into that pronunciation. The <ai> very likely represents a short vowel here and I have edited the entry to reflect that.

As for the vowel length of the first <a> - I am not sure. I don't know if the vowel was pronounced long in Latin by the time this word was borrowed into Gothic (likely 4th century at the earliest). More importantly, consider that the Ancient Greek loan from the same Latin word apparently has a short vowel in the same position and that it is not at all unlikely that the word entered Gothic via Greek. Miller (2019) supposes this route of borrowing. I have edited the entry to this effect.

Erring on the side of caution, I suppose it may be better to suppose a short [a] in this case. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 09:40, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! I guess for Greek, the shortness of the a can be inferred from the use of an acute rather than a circumflex accent in plural forms such as μεμβράναι? My impression is that vowel length distinctions were lost earlier in Greek than in Latin, so maybe this was a consequence of that.--Urszag (talk) 05:34, 21 September 2023 (UTC)