Reconstruction talk:Proto-West Germanic/garāfijō

Graf unrelated to gerefa

https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=reeve asserts that English reeve is unrelated to German Graf. --Jack Waugh (talk) 02:16, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

@Jack Waugh I saw the link posted and even went to the margrave page. While the link provided asserts that they are unrelated, the page of margrave only say "according to Boutkan a designation of rank that developed in Franconian, probably based on Medieval Latin -gravius, from Greek grapheus "scribe."" The "probably" isn’t much reassuring to me, however my main issues would be how can gravius become grāfio, the "v" becoming "f" isn't something i would expect from a Latin word borrowed into Old High German. Another is the question of the "ā", was or is the Latin world pronounced with an "a" or "ā"? If it was a short vowel, changing it to a long would seems unreasonable. Anyway, what I consider abnormalities if Graf came from Latin is the reason for which i placed Graf here, since it fits the etymological rules better. (Lastly when creating a discussion on an empty page, use the + button and not edit or at lest add a title). 𐌷𐌻𐌿𐌳𐌰𐍅𐌹𐌲𐍃 𐌰𐌻𐌰𐍂𐌴𐌹𐌺𐌹𐌲𐌲𐍃 (talk) 03:06, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

The etymology is uncertain, but your argument that Latin <v> couldn't become <f> in Old High German is absolutely void. First of all, the word is predominantly attested with <v> in Old High German in the first place (kravo, gravo, kravio, etc.). F-spellings are significantly rarer. But even theoretically this argument makes no sense as OHG distinguished two phonemes: one spelt <f> or sometimes <ph>, from Proto-Germanic *p, and another spelt <f> or <v>, from Proto-Germanic *f. The latter became <v> in MHG and was probably already widely voiced. There was no third labiodental for Latin <v>. 2.202.159.84 18:11, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Let’s not forget the associative prefix ga-, and the fact that none of the Germanic languages with the exception of West Saxon old English show evidence for that. It’s entirely possible that the English performed what’s called a folk etymology on it, perhaps associating it with a word like rōf meaning number. This is the sort of point that would require extensive research into the Germanic languages and the associative prefix,and whether or not it’s reduced in each respective language and under what circumstances.