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106
FRENCH LANGUAGE
is generally rejected in Provençal—French aimet (Latin amat), Provençal ama; aiment (amant), Prov. aman; (2) in always rejecting, absorbing or consonantizing the vowel of the last syllable but one, if unaccented; in such words as angele (often spelt angle), the e after the g only serves to show its soft sound—French veintre (now vaincre, Latin vincere), Prov. vencer, with accent on first syllable; French esclandre (scandalum), Prov. escandol; French olie (dissyllabic, i = y consonant, now huile), Prov. oli (oleum); (3) in changing accented a not in position into ai before nasals and gutturals and not after a palatal, and elsewhere into é (West French) or ei (East French), which develops an i before it when preceded by a palatal—French main (Latin manum), Prov. man; aigre (ācrem), agre; ele (ālam), East French eile, Prov. ala; meitié (medietātem), East French moitieit, Prov. meitat; (4) in changing a in unaccented final syllables into the vowel ǝ, intermediate to a and e; this vowel is written a in one or two of the older documents, elsewhere e—French aime (Latin amā), Prov. ama; aimes (amās), Prov. amas; aimet (amat), Prov. ama; (5) in changing original au into ò—French or (aurum), Prov. aur; rober (Teutonic raubōn), Prov. raubar; (6) in changing general Romanic é, from accented ē and ĭ not in position, into ei—French veine (vēnam), Prov. vena; peil (pilum), Prov. pel.
As some of the dialectal differences were in existence at the date of the earliest extant documents, and as the existing materials, till the latter half of the 11th century, are scanty and of uncertain locality, the chronological order (here adopted) of the earlier sound-changes is only tentative.
(1) Northern French has tsh (written c or ch) for Latin k (c) and t before palatal vowels, where Central and Southern French have ts (written c or z)—North Norman and Picard chire (cēram), brach (brāchium), plache (plateam); Parisian, South Norman, &c., cire, braz, place. Before the close of the Early Old French period (12th century) ts loses its initial consonant, and the same happened to tsh a century or two later; with this change the old distinction is maintained—Modern Guernsey and Picard chire, Modern Picard plache (in ordinary Modern French spelling); usual French cire, place. English, having borrowed from North and South Norman (and later Parisian), has instances of both tsh and s, the former in comparatively small number—chisel (Modern French ciseau = (?) caesellum), escutcheon (écusson, scūtiōnem); city (cité, cīvitātem), place. (2) Initial Teutonic w is retained in the north-east and along the north coast; elsewhere, as in the other Romance languages, g was prefixed—Picard, &c., warde (Teutonic warda), werre (werra); Parisian, &c., guarde, guerre. In the 12th century the u or w of gu dropped, giving the Modern French garde, guerre (with gu = g); w remains in Picard and Walloon, but in North Normandy it becomes v—Modern Guernsey vâson, Walloon wazon, Modern French gazon (Teutonic wason). English has both forms, sometimes in words originally the same—wage and gage (Modern French gage, Teutonic wadi); warden and guardian (gardien, warding). (3) Latin b after accented a in the imperfect of the first conjugation, which becomes v in Eastern French, in Western French further changes to w, and forms the diphthong ou with the preceding vowel—Norman amowe (amābam), portout (portābat); Burgundian ameve, portevet. -eve is still retained in some places, but generally the imperfect of the first conjugation is assimilated to that of the others—amoit, like avoit (habēbat). (4) The palatalization of every then existing k and g (hard) when followed by a, i or e, after having caused the development of i before the e (East French ei) derived from a not in position, is abandoned in the north, the consonants returning to ordinary k or g, while in the centre and south they are assibilated to tsh or dzh—North Norman and Picard cachier (captiāre), kier (cārum), cose (causam), eskiver (Teutonic skiuhan), wiket (Teutonic wik + ittum), gal (gallum), gardin (from Teutonic gard); South Norman and Parisian chacier, chier, chose, eschiver, guichet, jal, jardin. Probably in the 14th century the initial consonant of tsh, dzh disappeared, giving the modern French chasser, jardin with ch = sh and j = zh; but tsh is retained in Walloon, and dzh in Lorraine. The Northern forms survive—Modern Guernsey cachier, gardìn; Picard cacher, gardin. English possesses numerous examples of both forms, sometimes in related words—catch and chase; wicket, eschew; garden, jaundice (jaunisse, from galbanum). (5) For Latin accented a not in position Western French usually has é, Eastern French ei, both of which take an i before them when a palatal precedes—Norman and Parisian per (parem), oiez (audiātis); Lorraine peir, oieis. In the 17th and 18th centuries close é changed to open è, except when final or before a silent consonant—amer (amārum) now having è, aimer (amāre) retaining é. English shows the Western close é—peer (Modern French pair, Old French per), chief (chef, caput); Middle High German the Eastern ei—lameir (Modern French l’amer, l’aimer, la mer = Latin mare). (6) Latin accented e not in position, when it came to be followed in Old French by i unites with this to form i in the Western dialects, while the Eastern have the diphthongs ei—Picard, Norman and Parisian pire (pejor), piz (pectus); Burgundian peire, peiz. The distinction is still preserved—Modern French pire, pis; Modern Burgundian peire, pei. English words show always i—price (prix, pretium) spite (dépit, dēspectum). (7) The nasalization of vowels followed by a nasal consonant did not take place simultaneously with all the vowels. A and e before ṅ (guttural n, as in sing), ñ (palatal n), n and m were nasal in the 11th century, such words as tant (tantum) and gent (gentem) forming in the Alexis assonances to themselves, distinct from the assonances with a and e before non-nasal consonants. In the Roland umbre (ombre, umbram) and culchet (couche, collocat), fier (ferum) and chiens (canēs), dit (dictum) and vint (vēnit), ceinte (ciṅctam) and veie (voie, viam), brun (Teutonic brūn) and fut (fuit) assonate freely, though o (u) before nasals shows a tendency to separation. The nasalization of i and u (= Modern French u) did not take place till the 16th century; and in all cases the loss of the following nasal consonant is quite modern, the older pronunciation of tant, ombre being tãnt, õmbrǝ, not as now tã, õbrh. The nasalization took place whether the nasal consonant was or was not followed by a vowel, femme (fēminam), honneur (honōrem) being pronounced with nasal vowels in the first syllable till after the 16th century, as indicated by the doubling of the nasal consonant in the spelling and by the phonetic change (in femme and other words) next to be mentioned. English generally has au (now often reduced to a) for Old French ã—vaunt (vanter, vānitāre), tawny (tanné (?) Celtic). (8) The assimilation of ẽ (nasal e) to ã (nasal a) did not begin till the middle of the 11th century, and is not yet universal, in France, though generally a century later. In the Alexis nasal a (as in tant) is never confounded with nasal e (as in gent) in the assonances, though the copyist (a century later) often writes a for nasal e in unaccented syllables, as in amfant (enfant, infantem); in the Roland there are several cases of mixture in the assonances, gent, for instance, occurring in ant stanzas, tant in ent ones. English has several words with a for e before nasals—rank (rang, Old French renc, Teutonic hriṅga), pansy (pensée, pēnsātam); but the majority show e—enter (entrer, intrāre), fleam (flamme, Old French fleme, phlebotomum). The distinction is still preserved in the Norman of Guernsey, where an and en, though both nasal, have different sounds—lànchier (lancer, laṅceāre), but mèntrie (Old French menterie, from mentīrī). (9) The loss of s, or rather z, before voiced consonants began early, s being often omitted or wrongly inserted in 12th century MSS.—Earliest Old French masle (masculum), sisdre (sīceram); Modern French mâle, cidre. In English it has everywhere disappeared—male, cider; except in two words, where it appears, as occasionally in Old French, as d—meddle (mêler, misculāre), medlar (néflier, Old French also meslier, mespilārium). The loss of s before voiceless consonants (except f) is about two centuries later, and it is not universal even in Parisian—Early Old French feste (festam), escuier (scūtārium); Modern French fête, écuyer, but espérer (spērāre). In the north-east s before t is still retained—Walloon chestai (château, castellum), fiess (fête). English shows s regularly—feast, esquire. (10) Medial dh (soft th, as in then), and final th from Latin t or d between vowels, do not begin to disappear till the latter half of the 11th century. In native French MSS. dh is generally written d, and th written t; but the German scribe of the Oaths writes adjudha (adjūtam), cadhuna (Greek katá and ūnam); and the English one of the Alexis cuntretha (contrātam), lothet (laudātum), and that of the Cambridge Psalter heriteth (hērēditātem). Medial dh often drops even in the last-named MSS., and soon disappears; the same is true for final th in Western French—Modern French contrée, loué. But in Eastern French final th, to which Latin t between vowels had probably been reduced through d and dh, appears in the 12th century and later as t, rhyming on ordinary French final t—Picard and Burgundian pechiet (peccātum) apeleit (appellātum). In Western French some final ths were saved by being changed to f—Modern French soif (sitim), mœuf (obsolete, modum). English has one or two instances of final th, none of medial dh—faith (foi, fidem); Middle English cariteþ (charité, caritātem), druð (Old French dru, Teutonic drūd); generally the consonant is lost—country, charity. Middle High German shows the Eastern French final consonant—moraliteit (moralité, mōrālitātem). (11) T from Latin final t, if in an Old French unaccented syllable, begins to disappear in the Roland, where sometimes aimet (amat), sometimes aime, is required by the metre, and soon drops in all dialects. The Modern French t of aime-t-il and similar forms is an analogical insertion from such forms as dort-il (dormit), where the t has always existed. (12) The change of the diphthong ai to èi and afterwards to èè (the doubling indicates length) had not taken place in the earliest French documents, words with ai assonating only on words with a; in the Roland such assonances occur, but those of ai on è are more frequent—faire (facere) assonating on parastre (patraster) and on estes (estis); and the MS. (half a century later than the poem) occasionally has ei and e for ai—recleimet (reclāmat), desfere (disfacere), the latter agreeing with the Modern French sound. Before nasals (as in laine = lānam) and ié (as in payé = pācātum), ai remained a diphthong up to the 16th century, being apparently ei, whose fate in this situation it has followed. English shows ai regularly before nasals and when final, and in a few other words—vain (vain, vānum), pay (payer, pācāre), wait (guetter, Teutonic wahtēn); but before most consonants it has usually èè—peace (pais, pācum), feat (fait, factum). (13) The loss or transposition
