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On 2009-09-29 Capsicum wrote:
Latin 'medius' developped to Italian 'mezzo'. That would be an example but without 'r' so it is directly between vowels. 'Zabulus' for 'diabulus' is at least a spelling variation.
You need to dstinguish *tj/ts and *dj/dz even if Italian conflates them in spelling: _mezzo_ is [meddzo], _ragazzo_ is [ragattso].
I think in 'An Introduction To Vulgar Latin' it says that both were pronounced as 'yabulus'.
Grandgent is almost certainly wrong when he believes that G^-, J-, DJ- were [j] in Vulgar Latin. They may have been in (parts of) Iberia, but they probably were [dZ] (G^-,J-) and [dz] or [dZ] (DJ-) elsewhere. The spelling ZABULUS doesn't make any sense if it wasn't ['dzabUlUs]. There is ample evidence that *tj became [ts] and *dj became [dz] in Italo-Romance, and that both could be spelled Z. Matters are a bit complicated by the fact that *dj also could become [dZ], which also could be spelled Z, at least to go by the name variously spelled DAIA/DAZA.
Maybe there are attestated words for boy and for girl in Langobardic texts.
There aren't really any Langobardic texts, only random words and names in Latin texts. Meyer-L�bke lists several terms for "Bursche, Junge, Knabe" which derive from slangy and abusive expressions, apparently originally directed at slaves and street-urchins. It was evidently a fertile semantic field and _ragazzo_, could be from several of them, or rather is from one such which is not yet identified. Slang is the bane of etymology. /BP 8^)> -- Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch atte melroch dotte se ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "C'est en vain que nos Josu�s litt�raires crient � la langue de s'arr�ter; les langues ni le soleil ne s'arr�tent plus. Le jour o� elles se *fixent*, c'est qu'elles meurent." (Victor Hugo)