[Facts] Re: Osithe
in reply to a message by Cleveland Kent Evans
This is a standard Germanic dithematic name, of which the first element is Os "deity", which has a long "o" (in English there is loss of |n| before the |s| of the root ans-, with compensating lengthening of the vowel). The second element is gyþ "battle" (again with lengthening of the vowel with loss of |n| before |þ| of the root form gunþ-). In this case the vowel in English underwent i-umlaut due to the earlier nominative stem, and y represents this i-umlaut of u, a sound similar to Greek Υ, and German ü. In most English dialects, this y lost its rounding and merged with i, with the y spelling only retained in words of foreign (usually Greek) origin, like Cyprus, Lydia, etc.. Now, front vowels such as i and e cause a preceding (and final) Old English g to be palatalized to |j| (but still spelled g), and if the front vowel is an i, then final or medial g may vanish altogether, as in Godiva, from Godgifa (medial f is frequently pronounced as v, and later spelled as such, cf. wolf v. wolves; leaf v. leaves - the actual condition is whether the preceding/following letters cause the f to be "voiced"). The English pronunciation would have developed from OHS-gooth>>OHS-yeeth>>OHZ-eeth>>OH-sith; since french does not have a consonant |þ|, this normally becomes t or d, while |z| is simply the voiced allophone of |s| and frequently retains the "s" spelling; since in French the second syllable is accented, the s is naturally voiced to |z|; similarly |d| is the voiced allophone of |t|, so Osithe seems to have been pronounced oh-ZEED, which explains the later record.