Even in Wulfilas time, the monophthongs /ai/ and /au/ were already monophthongizing to /ɛː/ and /ɔː/ respectively. This may have also happened to /iu/, it may have been something like /ɯː/. Notably, /eu/ is not present in Biblical Gothic, as it previously merged with /iu/, so that's something I am considering. That being said, this language is not a descendant of Biblical Gothic so I don't need to follow it.Zekoslav wrote: ↑12 Jun 2019 16:06The likelihood of *iu > /y/ and *eu > /ø/ would then depend on whether these diphtongs were preserved until the Tatars came. If they were monophthongized much earlier, then the likelihood of such a result decreases. However, as I've already said sometimes relying too much on historical realism can be limiting, especially when certain things are still debated in historical linguistics!
Alternatively, it might follow Greek in first monophthongizing to /yː/ and then unrounding to /iː/, but I need specific dates for that.