4 ms·
Now that I am rambling about etymology, another cool thing: We spell and say the plural of "wife" as "wives". This is because of how the voiced "e" changed the
by sudobash1 4y ago
Now that I am rambling about etymology, another cool thing: We spell and say the plural of "wife" as "wives". This is because of how the voiced "e" changed the pronunciation of the unvoiced "f" to a voiced "v". ("v" and "f" are the same sound with the only difference being if you are engaging your vocal folds or not. Same with "z" and "s", "b" and "p", and some others).
The same happened with "knife" and "knives", and the pronunciation of "path" vs "paths" (the "s" sound is voiced, and caused the "th" to be voiced as well).
- OJFord 4y agoThough curiously not 'roof', despite all being Germanically rooted.
- agf 4y agoAre you saying not "rooves" in spelling, or in pronunciation, or both? I spell it "roofs" but pronounce it "rooves". With "dwarfs" and "dwarves", it depends on context for both spelling and pronunciation I think.
- jihadjihad 4y agoIt's probably due to what the parent said--the letters f and v were allophones in OE. Same reason why they are pronounced the same in German.
- philwelch 4y agoOr “dwarf”, aside from Tolkien.
- BerislavLopac 4y agoTolkien actually wanted for the pural of "dwarf" to be "dwerrows", but compromised to the neutral "dwarves".