Why is the Croatian word "pjena" (foam) spelt with "je" as if it were from Slavic yat, rather than "i", as it is from Slavic "y"? We know it is from Slavic "y" because of the 'u' in Latin "spuma" (also meaning "foam", the 's' here is s-mobile which was common in Indo-Europan), right? As in Latin "fumus" and Croatian "dim", both meaning "smoke" (it was 'dh' there in Indo-European, which turns into 'd' in Croatian and 'f' in Latin), for example.
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1Just check gorazd.org/mgulliver/#/record/15131 There is little point reasoning about the Proto-Slavic forms from Latin equivalents when you can easily check the actual Old Church Slavonic word. (which belongs to South Slavic so close enough for Croatian)– Vladimir F Героям славаSep 13, 2021 at 20:17
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1 Answer
The ū in Latin fūmus and spūma have different sources. The ū in spūma is from the Proto-Italic diphthong *oi̯. The Proto-Indo-European root would have had an *e or *o vowel followed by a laryngeal and then *y~*i (Michel de Vaan gives the PIE reconstructed form as *(s)poHi-nh2- or *(s)peh3i-nh2-).
answered Sep 11, 2021 at 19:25
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1@FlatAssembler: In Classical Latin, ū was the usual outcome: oe was a less common result. The conditions in which the sound developed to ū vs. oe are unclear. Sep 11, 2021 at 21:19