Re: The word "evolution"


Bobby D. Bryant wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Sep 2005, "Iain" <iain_inkster@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > Is the link between "Evolve" and "Evolution" calligraphical?
>
> If you're asking why one has 'u' where the other has 'v', it's a
> result of the fact that both words are derived from Latin, which
> didn't have a 'v' sound at all, and which didn't make an orthographic
> distinction between 'u' and 'w'.
>
> The Latin letter 'V' represented a phoneme that took on the properties
> of either a vowel ('u') or a consonant ('w') depending on its context.
> In EVOLVTIO the first 'V' was a consonant (because it fell between two
> vowels) and the second was a vowel (because it fell between two
> consonants). The consonant was like 'w' (the modern'v' pronunciation
> is the result of later linguistic changes), so it would have been
> pronounced in classical Latin something like -
>
> e wo lu ti o
>
> [OT joke: Fudd Latin?]
>
> But "evolve" comes from a Latin form without the -TIO suffic (which
> made a noun out of the verbal root), and the second 'V' wasn't between
> consonants in forms such as the infinitive, EVOLVERE, so it was
> effectively a consonant in that form, giving something like -
>
> e wol we re
>
> and due to linguistic changes since the time of classical Latin the
> 'w' came to be pronounced as 'v', by the same or a similar process
> that made the one near the front of the word pronounced that way.
>
> I think the historical sound changes of 'w' to 'v' were in effect by
> the time of Medieval Latin, but I'm not sure.

Cheers,

I guessed that much -- I just wondered whether maybe it was one of
those words like "often", of which the varying pronunciations are
influenced by the actual orthography itself. I was also curious about
the two ways of saying "data", which I always imagined came about not
from some Vowel Shift discrepency but from tall ginger schoolboys from
the 18th and 19th centuries smoking pipes in the common room and
reading notes without ever hearing the lecturer say them by attending
classes, and coming to two different conclusions about how it's said.

Can I write "involution", by right of inflection, or whatever?

~Iain

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Ancient writing systems
    ... "the difference between vowel and semivowel being simply that the ... Latin is also seen in the occasional poetic interchange of their ... noted below, wherever a single, intervocalic consonant is written, it ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Academic/scientific journals in Esperanto?
    ... Thomas Bushnell, BSG writes: ... Latin uses V as both a vowel and a consonant, ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Ancient writing systems
    ... latter uses a symbol to mark the position of each vowel. ... 'diacritics' usually denote the consonant without any vowel. ... some stage of Classical Latin. ... That would rule out most scripts of the Brahmi ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: The word "evolution"
    ... > The Latin letter 'V' represented a phoneme that took on the properties ... > of either a vowel or a consonant depending on its context. ... > and due to linguistic changes since the time of classical Latin the ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Academic/scientific journals in Esperanto?
    ... Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: ... Latin uses V as both a vowel and a consonant, ...
    (sci.lang)