# Old English pronunciation of "bycgan" - to buy



## theagx

Is it pronounced beec-gan or booc-gan (or beejgan or boojgan)? I know that "y" was sometimes pronounced as "u" or "oo"? There seems to be a lot of y/i/u confusion in OE, i.e. building (bilding), business (biznes), etc.

Any idea of its inflections, i.e:

Ic bycge (pres)
Ic bohte (past)
Ic haebbe bohten/bycgen (past particple?)
bycgende (pres particle?)



> buy (v.) Old English _bycgan_ (past tense _bohte_) "to buy, pay for, acquire; redeem, ransom; procure; get done," from Proto-Germanic _*bugjan_ (cognates: Old Saxon _buggjan_, Old Norse _byggja_, Gothic _bugjan_), of unknown origin, not found outside Germanic.
> 
> The surviving spelling is southwest England dialect; the word was generally pronounced in Old English and Middle English with a _-dg-_ sound as "budge," or "bidge." Meaning "believe, accept as true" first recorded 1926. Related: Bought; _buying_. To _buy time_ "prevent further deterioration but make no improvement" is attested from 1946.


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## berndf

No, the letter "y" represents the sound [y] as in French "t*u*" or German "B*ü*cher", if long. If short, possibly also [Y] as in German "t*ü*chtig" but that cannot be established for sure. In Modern English, this sound doesn't exist and  is close to unpronounceable for modern speakers. Sound re-spellings like "beec-gan" or "booc-gan" are meaningless.

The confusion is caused by the fact that there were different sound shifts in different late Old English dialects. In some, the outcome was a short "u" (b*u*sy), in some a short "i" (h*i*ll) and in others a long "e" (*e*vil). The oddity about the word busy is that the spelling is taken from a dialect where it became a short "u" and the pronunciation from another dialect where it became a short "i".


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## ahvalj

Also, this _cg_ has no counterpart in modern English: it was a palatalized long fricative _g_.


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## Stoggler

ahvalj said:


> Also, this _cg_ has no counterpart in modern English: it was a palatalized long fricative _g_.



I thought the cg digraph represented the sound found in words like bridge, gerbil, Jabba, giant?


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## berndf

Stoggler said:


> I thought the cg digraph represented the sound found in words like bridge, gerbil, Jabba, giant?


That's also what I thought, an affricate and not a fricative.


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## ahvalj

Stoggler said:


> I thought the cg digraph represented the sound found in words like bridge, gerbil, Jabba, giant?


_J_ is the later stage of this sound reached in Middle English (when the combination _dg_ was introduced): in earlier Old English it still wasn't assibilated and was originally pronounced in most cases as a palatalized long _g_. However, the development like _bycgan_>_buy_ as opposed to _brycg_>_bridge_ suggests that in some words this palatalized long sound was fricative, i. e. _ǥ': _(in _dæg_>_day _this palatalized _ǥ_ was short).


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## berndf

ahvalj said:


> However, the development like _bycgan_>_buy_ as opposed to _brycg_>_bridge_ suggests that in some words this palatalized long sound was fricative, i. e. _ǥ': _(in _dæg_>_day _this palatalized _ǥ_ was short).


I would be sceptical. The explanation quoted by the OP, that the modern spelling and pronunciation is the result of dialectal variation rather than a sign of original fricative pronunciation of <cg>, seems much more plausible to me.


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## ahvalj

berndf said:


> I would be sceptical. The explanation quoted by the OP, that the modern spelling and pronunciation is the result of dialectal variation rather than a sign of original fricative pronunciation of <cg>, seems much more plausible to me.


Are there dialect examples of _y_ vs. the literary _dg_ (à la _brycg_>**_bruy/bridge_)?


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## ahvalj

An observation. 

In -_jan_ verbs of the 1st and 3rd weak classes, the Old English _cg_ (<_ǥj_) later develops into _y_:
_*ƀuǥjanan>bycgan>buy_
_*la__ǥ__janan>lecgan>lay
*đrū__ǥ__janan _(?)_>drȳg(e)an>dry_ (short consonant after the long vowel)
_*sa__ǥjanan>__secg(e)an>say
_
The same in -_jan_ verbs of the 5th and 6th strong classes:
_*le__ǥ__janan>licg(e)an>lie_

In -_ja_ and -_jō_ nouns, the Old English _cg_ (<_ǥj_) later develops into _dg_:
_*xru__ǥjaz>__hrycg>ridge
*wa__ǥjaz>__wecg>wedge
*ƀru__ǥjō(n)>__brycg>bridge
*a__ǥjō>__ecg>edge_


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## theagx

ahvalj said:


> _J_ is the later stage of this sound reached in Middle English (when the combination _dg_ was introduced): in earlier Old English it still wasn't assibilated and was originally pronounced in most cases as a palatalized long _g_. However, the development like _bycgan_>_buy_ as opposed to _brycg_>_bridge_ suggests that in some words this palatalized long sound was fricative, i. e. _ǥ': _(in _dæg_>_day _this palatalized _ǥ_ was short).



Could you explain what this fricative/palatization means? How would dg have been pronounced then?


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## ahvalj

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_velar_fricative
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_palatal_fricative

The sound that became to be written _dg _in Middle English, originated from the Common Germanic _ǥj_ (see examples in the post #9). Creators of the Old English orthography used _g_ (actually, not the Latin _g_ but a special Anglo-Saxon _g_ that seems not to have a letter in the Unicode standard) for the short and _cg_ for the long consonants that showed a twofold (or a threefold for _cg_) development in the later language. Since we are discussing _cg_, in addition to the examples in post #9, the Old English _cg_ may also produce the modern English _g_ (_twicge_>_twig_). As all the three _cg_'s may occur in the same position (e. g., word-finally), it is unlikely that from the very beginning they were deliberately used for three strikingly different sounds, i. e. _y_ (>_lay_), _j_ (>_wedge_) and _g_ (>_twig_) — most probably, these were three variants of the long _g_ at that time, respectively a fricative palatalized _ǥ (>y _in_ lay__),_ a non-fricative palatalized _g_ (>_j_ in _wedge_) and a non-fricative non-palatalized _g_ (>_g_ in _twig_). In the course of history of Old English, the second long _g_ was developing _g':_>_d':_>_ʤ_ (as it did in hundreds of languages), and when it reached this later stage (to the beginning of Middle English), a combination _dg_ was introduced. The development of _k'_>_t'_>_ʨ_ (written as _ch_ since Middle English) must have been parallel.

*Update 1. *I must check this _twigge/twicge_ variant: at least I was based on the Wiktionary data — http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/twig#Etymology_1

*Update 2. *I have actually forgotten to insert the link for the ancestor of _dg: _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_palatal_stop


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## berndf

The Germanic j merged with the palatalized g and therefore used only one letter, g, for both. Old English did not have two gs. The distinction between g and yogh developped only in the Middle English period when the plosive g was introduced under French influence. Old English had initial plosive gs under Norse influence but not anywhere else. In original West Germanic g certainly was only a fricative and never a plosive, as it still is the case in Dutch and in Middle German dialects. K is different because there the plosive k and the fricative h existed both as separate phonemes.


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## ahvalj

How could you explain then that the same letter was used for _dæg_ (>_day_: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/day#Etymology), _boga_ (>_bow_: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bow#Etymology_1), _docga_ (>_dog_: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dog#Etymology) plus the examples in post #9? By the way, _docga_ replaces my example with _twicge_.

I didn't write that the short _g_ was plosive.


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## ahvalj

To summarize. The Old English combination _cg_ corresponds to three modern outcomes:
_docga_ (Nom. Sg.) > _dog_
_wecgas_ (Nom. Pl.) > _wedges_
_bycgan_ (Infinitive) > _buy_.

Since, as we see, these outcomes can occur in the same position, it is logical to assume that we have three separate sounds in Old English. On the other hand, since it is hard to imagine that creators of the Old English orthography used the same _cg_ for three quite distinct sounds, and since all the three eventually come from the Germanic *_ǥ, _it is most probable that in the earlier Old English these were still three flavors of _ǥ/g._


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## berndf

The spellings of bridge and buy diverged only in modern English. That doesn't make distinct pronunciations in OE very probable. Docge is a late and rare word of obscure etymology. It is probably not well suited to study systematic shifts.


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## eamp

My guess is that the "y" of "buy" (and "lay", "say") comes from the 2nd/3rd person Singular of these verbs, where the g was not geminated. ie OE "ic bycge" but "he bygeþ" with voiced palatal fricative (or approximant?). 
Same thing happened in German in many verbs with West Germanic j-gemination. So we have "legen" compared to OHG "leggen" because of the old 3rd person "legit".


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## ahvalj

Hurray: I have found yogh in the Unicode: ȝ



eamp said:


> My guess is that the "y" of "buy" (and "lay", "say") comes from the 2nd/3rd person Singular of these verbs, where the g was not geminated. ie OE "ic bycge" but "he bygeþ" with voiced palatal fricative (or approximant?).
> Same thing happened in German in many verbs with West Germanic j-gemination. So we have "legen" compared to OHG "leggen" because of the old 3rd person "legit".



That's a good explanation: in nouns this doesn't occur. However, we don't know whether these two _cȝ_'s were still identical in Old English: if the normal outcome of _ǥǥ_ was a long plosive _g:_ (as it seems to happen with all Germanic long voiced affricates: _ǥǥ_>_gg_, _đđ_>_dd_, _ƀƀ_>_bb_), we get the following picture (with the palatal _g': _written as _ɟ:_):
_brycȝ_ [bryɟɟ] (palatal plosive — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_palatal_stop)
_bycȝan_ [byɟɟan] (palatal plosive) vs. _byȝeþ_ [byʝeþ] (palatal fricative — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_palatal_fricative)

It is not impossible that already within Old English the last pair was levelled to:
[byʝʝan] vs. [byʝeþ] (both — palatal fricatives)

This would explain the lack (?) of pairs *_to bidge_/*_to budge_ — _he buyeth_.


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## N'importe-qui

ahvalj said:


> To summarize. The Old English combination _cg_ corresponds to three modern outcomes:
> _docga_ (Nom. Sg.) > _dog_
> _wecgas_ (Nom. Pl.) > _wedges_
> _bycgan_ (Infinitive) > _buy_.
> 
> Since, as we see, these outcomes can occur in the same position, it is logical to assume that we have three separate sounds in Old English. On the other hand, since it is hard to imagine that creators of the Old English orthography used the same _cg_ for three quite distinct sounds, and since all the three eventually come from the Germanic *_ǥ, _it is most probable that in the earlier Old English these were still three flavors of _ǥ/g._


It's unlikely that the modern infinitive came from "bycgan" at all, or that the sounds in. Rather, it probably came from the other finite forms, where we had a single <g>, which was eventually pronounced as a /j/. The same sort of thing must have happened with the verbs "secgan", "haebban" and "libban", which had single-consonant forms in many places in the present and past (e.g., 1st/3rd sg. pret. "sægde", "hæfde" and "lifde" and 3rd. sg. pres. "segeþ", "hafaþ" and "lifaþ"). In fact, it seems that all verbs of class I and III that survived and had geminates or single consonant plus /i/ in the infinitive and certain present forms had these leveled out during or before the Middle English period. I can't think of a single example that survives. Another example is the weak present class VI verb "hebban" which comes down to us as "heave".

Etymonline says that "budge" or "bidge" survived into Middle English, but gives no examples. Alas, I no longer have access to the OED. I would guess that just as class II weak verbs retained the /i/ or /j/ in the infinitive in the Middle English period in some dialects, so too did these weird class I and class III weak verbs. If that is the case, and there is textual evidence, it should reveal whether the pronunciations actually merged for geminates, or whether they remained distinct and the geminate-based forms were leveled out.


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## ahvalj

Yes, that seems likely after the post #16.



N'importe-qui said:


> In fact, it seems that all verbs of class I and III that survived and had geminates or single consonant plus /i/ in the infinitive and certain present forms had these leveled out during or before the Middle English period. I can't think of a single example that survives.


There are some verbs that preserve the short root vowel and hence derive from roots with geminates: 
First class (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Old_English_class_1_weak_verbs)
_fellan>fell
fyllan>fill _(though here _ll<lnj_)_
missan>miss
sellan>sell
settan>set
tellan>tell_

Though the amount of vocabulary losses since Old English is indeed frightening. 

Back to the topic question. I think we still can't be sure whether _cȝ_ in such Old English verbs always represented the same consonant (long palatal plosive _g_) as in nouns: the possibility that it was levelled to a long _j_ or _ʝ_ already in the course of Old English, as suggested in post #17, can't be excluded.

By the way, after having checked several sources on the Old English pronunciation, I still can't understand what are the reasons why some authors postulate the existence of _ʨ_ and _ʥ_ already in the Old English period. What we know is that these sounds started as palatalized _k'_ and _g'_ in a part of Common Ingaevonic (shared with Frisian but not with Saxon) and became explicitly written as _ch_ and _dg_ in Middle English — there seems to be no evidence to decide when exactly did the assibilation into _ʨ_ and _ʥ_ occur.


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## berndf

ahvalj said:


> There are some verbs that preserve the short root vowel and hence derive from roots with geminates


Roots with geminate consonants necessitate short vowels but the opposite it not necessarily true. From a short vowel you cannot deduce a geminate consonant. This is a peculiarity of Modern High German.



ahvalj said:


> Back to the topic question. I think we still can't be sure whether _cȝ_ in such Old English verbs always represented the same consonant (long palatal *plosive *_g_) as in nouns


If, then _affricate_, not _plosive_.


ahvalj said:


> the possibility that it was leveled to a long _j_ or _ʝ_ already in the course of Old English, as suggested in post #17, can't be excluded.


More likely [j] since original j and palatalized g had already merged.



ahvalj said:


> By the way, after having checked several sources on the Old English pronunciation, I still can't understand what are the reasons why some authors postulate the existence of _ʨ_ and _ʥ_ already in the Old English period. What we know is that these sounds started as palatalized _k'_ and _g'_ in a part of Common Ingaevonic (shared with Frisian but not with Saxon) and became explicitly written as _ch_ and _dg_ in Middle English — there seems to be no evidence to decide when exactly did the assibilation into _ʨ_ and _ʥ_ occur.


There is no symmetry between k and g. The Anglo-Frisian affricatization of k is specific to k and cannot be transferred to g. The realizations of g and gg needs a separate story. Middle English did not have the spelling _dg_; this is modern English. The ME spelling of _bridge_ was _brigge _(with variants _brugge_ and _bregge_ as to be expected after what I explained in #2).


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## N'importe-qui

I won't speak for <c>, but I think the evidence for <g> being pronounced as /j/ in Late Old English is compelling. The biggest argument in favor of that is that, by late West Saxon times, words with initial /j/ had been respelled with <g> fairly consistently. So not only was this a safe alternate spelling, it was considered to be *better* than using <i> or <e> or some combination of those. Additionally, words with internal /j/ sometimes also had an unetymological <g>, notably in some i-stem forms (e.g., "heriges"). There's even an example of "hig" for "hie". It's hard to reconcile these examples with the idea that <g> in front-vowel contexts represented anything other than /j/.

As for <cg>, it's thinkable that if <g> had become /j/ by lWS, then <cg> would have completed its change to either /dʒ/ or /jj/. The former is more likely given the outcome in Middle English for most of these words, where paradigmatic levelling was unlikely or impossible (e.g., "ecg").


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## berndf

N'importe-qui said:


> I won't speak for <c>, but I think the evidence for <g> being pronounced as /j/ in Late Old English is compelling.


In late OE <g> had three allophonic pronunciations, [g], [ɣ] and [j]. The assumption of a phoneme /j/ (rather than a phone [j]) is a bit problematic, though not entirely unjustified as it has merged with the Germanic /j/ and there were words where /g/=[j] would be inconsistent with the allophonic distribution rules for the phoneme /g/, e.g., _ġeong_ = y_oung _(the <e> in _ġeong_ is assumed to be purely orthographic and not representing a front vowel).


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