To: Multiple recipients of list WELSH-L >As far as I know _Istanbul_ is no good example for prosthetic vowels. I >somewhere read that this comes from Greek _eis te:n polin_, pronounced >_is tim boli(n)_ (in Middle and Modern Greek), meaning _into the city_. >So the _i_ in Istanbul would be original. (But I'm not completely sure >whether this is correct.) IM > >On Wed, 19 Oct 1994 17:18:44 BST, Colin Fine wrote: > >>It is also worth pointing out that vowels develop between and around >>consonant clusters at many times and places. Istanbul began life as >>Stamboul (or perhaps Stanbul - I suspect the -m- is assimilated), and >>in various parts of Ireland and Scotland today you will hear 'film' >>pronounced with two syllables. >> >> Colin Fine Byzantine Demotic Greek for 'to the City' would indeed be "steembolee". But the prothetic is a standard feature of Turkish loanwords, e.g. iskele ('quay' from Greek 'skala'), 'istim' (English 'steam') and so on. The other point, about 'fillum' for 'film'. This is analogous to Welsh 'pobl/pobol', 'cefn/cefen', 'ofn/ofyn' (medieval), etc. Technically epenthesis, or svarabakhti. Gareth Morgan