Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/maþlą

• ^? *mahlą

Uncertain. Perhaps from a zero-grade stem of *mōtaną (“to be permitted to, to be allowed”) (compare *mōtą (“meeting”) for the semantics) + *-tlom (“instrument suffix”).^[1] In the case of *maþlą, the root-final Proto-Indo-European *d of their common root may have been lost before the instrumental *-þlą ( < *-tlom) suffix, as in Proto-West Germanic *seþl from *séd-tlom; however, the existence of such a phonetic process is disputed, as a sequence of two dentals normally yields Germanic *-ss-, and there are alternative explanations for *seþl.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɑθ.lɑ̃/

*maþlą n^[1]

1. gathering
2. speech
3. legal case
4. agreement

• *maþlijaną

• Proto-West Germanic: *maþl
  • Old English: mæþel
  • Old Frisian: mēl (in derivatives)
  • Old Saxon: mahal
    • Middle Low German: mal
  • Frankish:
    • → Late Latin: mallum
  • Old High German: mahal, māl, (in proper nouns) madal
    • Middle High German: mahel, māl
      • German: Mahl (obsolete)
• Old Norse: mál
  • Icelandic: mál
  • Faroese: mál
  • Norwegian Bokmål: mål
  • Old Swedish: māl
    • Swedish: mål
  • Danish: mål
  • → Old English: māl (“speech, contract, agreement”)
    • Middle English: mal, male
      • English: mail
      • Scots: mail
• Gothic: 𐌼𐌰𐌸𐌻 (maþl)

• Guus Kroonen, “Reflections on the o/zero-Ablaut in the Germanic Iterative Verbs”, in The Indo-European Verb: Proceedings of the Conference of the Society for Indo-European Studies, Los Angeles, 13-15 September 2010, Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2012