3 ms·

Of course it's possible that the Irish pronunciation of film is not inserting a vowel sound, rather that the modern english spelling and pronunciation has remov

by Thrall 14y ago

Of course it's possible that the Irish pronunciation of film is not inserting a vowel sound, rather that the modern english spelling and pronunciation has removed one. It's possible that the Irish resembles the old english pronunciation more closely and it's the modern english pronunciation and spelling of film that has undergone the more significant change.

ithkuil 14y ago
Sure. For example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s 00:04:36, states that film is spelled philome in Shakespeare's work. Unfortunately a google search of "philome" yields only pages about shakespeare pronounciation, especially by these two guys; I don't know what that means. However, I think that thinking about the evolution of a language as a linear progression is misleading. Is certainly possible that modern Irish pronunciation stems from what was spoken at that time, and the modern "mainstream" english pronunciation evolved later from a slighly different root, and epenthesis acted only in one of the two branches. Film derives from west germanic filminjan, which in turn comes from proto germanic fello(m), and proto indoeuropean pel-, with cognates in lating and greek, pella and pellis respectivly. So it's possible that epenthesis was applied on top of filminjan in irish scottish accents (possibly due to pressure of the gaelic substrate), while the dialect which originated RP didn't have this change. I'm sure somebody with better knowledge of the matter can be more precise about that, however, it's strange how little (and often more misleading than uncertain) information is there about one the most widely spoken languages. (Sorry, if I had more time, I would have written a shorter comment :-) )
- ithkuil 14y ago
  EDIT: The video displays the page at "the lash of Philome", which clearly references Philomela (Φιλομήλα), so I'm not sure if I understood their point (see http://goo.gl/TxMkG http://goo.gl/TxMkG for an annotated extract of the text)

by Thrall 14y ago

ithkuil 14y ago

Sure. For example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s 00:04:36, states that film is spelled philome in Shakespeare's work. Unfortunately a google search of "philome" yields only pages about shakespeare pronounciation, especially by these two guys; I don't know what that means. However, I think that thinking about the evolution of a language as a linear progression is misleading. Is certainly possible that modern Irish pronunciation stems from what was spoken at that time, and the modern "mainstream" english pronunciation evolved later from a slighly different root, and epenthesis acted only in one of the two branches. Film derives from west germanic filminjan, which in turn comes from proto germanic fello(m), and proto indoeuropean pel-, with cognates in lating and greek, pella and pellis respectivly. So it's possible that epenthesis was applied on top of filminjan in irish scottish accents (possibly due to pressure of the gaelic substrate), while the dialect which originated RP didn't have this change. I'm sure somebody with better knowledge of the matter can be more precise about that, however, it's strange how little (and often more misleading than uncertain) information is there about one the most widely spoken languages. (Sorry, if I had more time, I would have written a shorter comment :-) )

ithkuil 14y ago
EDIT: The video displays the page at "the lash of Philome", which clearly references Philomela (Φιλομήλα), so I'm not sure if I understood their point (see http://goo.gl/TxMkG http://goo.gl/TxMkG for an annotated extract of the text)