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Initial Voiced Laryngeal Plus */y/ in Albanian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Robert Minshall
Robert Minshall*
Affiliation:
Brown University
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Extract

Albanian possesses a palatal semivowel represented orthographically by j. Although this sound appears in initial position, it does not seem likely that it is the normal Albanian development of initial IE */y/. Albanian j- is seen most frequently in loanwords : jarm ‘plow’ < Bulg jarьn ‘yoke’ ; jir ‘edge’ < NGk. gûros ‘extent, embrace’; ‘a type of guitar’ < Turk, jongar ‘guitar’.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 32 , Issue 4-Part1: July-September , December 1956 , pp. 627 - 630
Copyright
Copyright © 1956 by the Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 Brugmann Gr. 2 1.119.

2 Gustav M,eyer, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der albanesischen Sprache 163 (Strassburg, 1891).

3 Julius Pokorny, Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch 514 (Bern, 1947 ff.).

4 KZ 36.103.

5 In Gr.2 1.277, Brugmann cautiously suggests that the element -jo in Alb. ke-jo ‘this’ (fem.) represents the fem. rel. pron. *yā. So also Vittore Pisani, Glottologia indeuropea 14 (Turin, 1949).

6 Etymologisches Wörterbuch 162.

7 WH 733.

8 Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historischen Klasse dera Kiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften 168.32 (Vienna, 1911).

9 Lg. 28.38 (1952).

10 Etymologisches Wörterbuch 485.

11 Émile Boisacq, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque 3 379 (Heidelberg, 1938) : Gk. íoulos ‘*hairy’ < *wi-wol-no-s or *wi-wol-so-s, a reduplication of Gk. oûlos ‘kinky’ < *wol-no-s or *wol-so-s.

12 See fn. 2.

13 Etymologisches Wörterbuch 139.

14 KZ 36.327.

15 Dictionnaire étymologique 309.

16 Etymologisches Wörterbuch 308.

17 Holger Pedersen, Vergleichende Grammatik der keltischen Sprachen 1.65 (Göttingen, 1909). See also WH 734.

18 Annuaire de l'Institut de philologie et d'histoire orientales et slaves 10.526 (Brussels, 1950).

19 Pokorny, Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch 507.

20 Alb. gjizē < *gjier-ze ‘cheese’ is related to Lat. serum ‘whey’ in WH 525.

21 Winfred P. Lehmann, Proto-Indo-European phonology 77 (Austin, 1952).

22 E. H. Sturtevant, The Indo-Hittite laryngeals 51 (Baltimore, 1942).

23 IHL 51.

24 PIEP 78.

25 Grundriss der indogermanischen Sprach-und Altertumskunde 3.144 (Strassburg, 1917).

26 KZ 36.340.

27 Except in such secondary developments as Alb. θi ‘pig’ : Gk. hŷs ‘pig’, where dissimilation before a following IE */s/ has caused Alb. */s/ > Alb. θ; also Alb. θań ‘I dry’ < *sausnyō: Lith. saũsas ‘dry’.