wsp (12/12/82)
The news item about "bec" being pronounced with a velar fricative reminded me about the general question of spirantizing of velars in Germanic. This is where velar stops /k,g/ are lenited to fricatives or affricatives, usually where preceded by a high front vowel such as /i/, i.e., orthographic long "e". It seems that this was a general phenomenon spread from Low German by the Hansa League. In Sweden, the affrication spread along lines of communication from the port cities, along socioeconomic lines, probably in direct relation to contact with the mechant class, and lastly through the paradigm of a word to even unconditioned environments It is likely that different groups of people around the North Sea had words for related concepts that were differentiated on the basis of whether the affrication had taken place viz. dike and ditch where one shows the affricatization and means the hole dug to throw up the one that doesn't. Peter Benson ittdcd-west