Reconstruction talk:Proto-Germanic/arbaidiz

Old Saxon

My etymological dictionary gives ”arbēd, arbēdi”, which makes sense considering its derivatives. Which is correct? --Lundgren8 (t · c) 09:10, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Both are correct in theory. There was no difference in early Germanic between b and v, they were more or less the same phoneme. It was normally pronounced as v within a word and b at the beginning or after m. But when it came after r, pronunciations apparently differed between the dialects, with some pronouncing it more v-like and others more b-like. (This is not unusual; the same also happened to d) That probably accounts for the spelling variations in Old Saxon. —CodeCat 10:26, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I think it was never /v/ in Proto-Germanic, but /β/, which is also what we transcribe. In Old Saxon, however, /β/ did become /v/. The reason for the variation in this particular word I would rather see in the secondary stress that was given to the second syllable, as seen also in the fact that for the most part the full vowel or diphthong was preserved later on. 88.64.225.109 17:49, 16 September 2021 (UTC)