Talk:wiċċ

Root wrong or debatable

The current article text gives root w-ġ-ħ.

Now the first and second letter mentioned correspond to the root letters in the Arabic word, but the second one does not correspond to the second (and third) root letter of the Maltese word, which are ċ and arguably ċ, respectively.

[-, Dictionary Dizzjunarju Maltese-English English-Maltese, Colour Image Malta, 1998, 9789990984057] gives the word wiċċ. It also gives the word wiċċa with plural wiċeċ with the meaning mask(s). This seems to indicate that the second and third root letters are ċ and ċ.

For the third root letter I am not completely certain, but [Avram, Andrei A., The diachrony of word-final obstruent devoicing in Maltese, in: Maltese Linguistics on the Danube, Čéplö, Slavomír and Drobný, Jaroslav, eds., De Gruyter Mouton, 2020, pp. 27-57, 9783110672268] says:

"[...] Modern Maltese wiċċ 'face'. The word, etymologically derived from Arabic *waǧh, is first attested in 1664 as ug, i.e. with word-final [dʒ] [...]. However, it appears to have undergone relatively soon afterwards a change in its underlying representation, from a word-final voiced affricate to a devoiced one."

Maybe the word wiċċ can be considered to have root w-ċ-ċ with ħ in the irregular plural being a remnant of the Arabic third root letter h; Modern Maltese has word-final obstruent devoicing, and voiced h has devoiced counterpart ħ.

I propose publishing root w-ċ-ċ or at least w-ċ-ħ, or possibly w-ċ-ċ/ħ.Redav (talk) 23:03, 15 August 2021 (UTC)