and dh (soft th); e for é, è, and ə; g for g and dzh; h was often
written in words of Latin origin where not sounded; i (j) stood
for i, y consonant, and dzh; o for ó (Anglo-Norman u) and ò;
s for s and z; t for t and th; u (v) for ó (Anglo-Norman u), y and
v; y (rare) for i; z for dz and ts. Some new sounds had also
to be provided for: where tsh had to be distinguished from non-final
ts, ch—at first, as in Italian, denoting k before i and e (chi =
ki from qvī)—was used for it; palatal l was represented by ill,
which when final usually lost one l, and after i dropped its i;
palatal n by gn, ng or ngn, to which i was often prefixed; and
the new letter w, originally uu (vv), and sometimes representing
merely uv or vu, was employed for the consonant-sound still
denoted by it in English. All combinations of vowel-letters
represented diphthongs; thus ai denoted a followed by i, ou
either óu or òu, ui either ói (Anglo-Norman ui) or yi, and similarly
with the others—ei, eu, oi, iu, ie, ue (and oe), and the triphthong
ieu. Silent letters, except initial h in Latin words, are very rare;
though MSS. copied from older ones often retain letters whose
sounds, though existing in the language of the author, had disappeared
from that of the more modern scribe. The subsequent
changes in orthography are due mainly to changes of sound,
and find their explanation in the phonology. Thus, as Old
French progresses, s, having become silent before voiced consonants,
indicates only the length of the preceding vowel; e
before nasals, from the change of ẽ (nasal e) to ã (nasal a), represents
ã; c, from the change of ts to s, represents s; qu
and gu, from the loss of the w of kw and gw, represent
k and g (hard); ai, from the change of ai to è, represents è; ou,
from the change of òu and óu to u, represents u; ch and g, from
the change of tsh and dzh to sh and zh, represent sh and zh; eu
and ue, originally representing diphthongs, represent œ (German
ö); z, from the change of ts and dz to s and z, represents s and z.
The new values of some of these letters were applied to words
not originally spelt with them: Old French k before i and e
was replaced by qu (evesque, eveske, Latin episcopum); Old
French u and o for ó, after this sound had split into eu and u,
were replaced in the latter case by ou (rous, for ros or rus, Latin
russum); s was accidentally inserted to mark a long vowel
(pasle, pale, Latin pallidum); eu replaced ue and oe (neuf, nuef,
Latin novum and novem); z replaced s after é (nez, nes, nāsum).
The use of x for final s is due to an orthographical mistake; the
MS. contraction of us being something like x was at last confused
with it (iex for ieus, oculōs), and, its meaning being forgotten, u
was inserted before the x (yeux) which thus meant no more than
s, and was used for it after other vowels (voix for vois, vōcem).
As literature came to be extensively cultivated, traditional as
distinct from phonetic spelling began to be influential; and in the
14th century, the close of the Old French period, this influence,
though not overpowering, was strong—stronger than in England
at that time. About the same period there arose etymological as
distinct from traditional spelling. This practice, the alteration
of traditional spelling by the insertion or substitution of letters
which occurred (or were supposed to occur) in the Latin (or supposed
Latin) originals of the French words, became very prevalent
in the three following centuries, when such forms as debvoir
(dēbēre) for devoir, faulx (falsum) for faus, autheur (auctōrem,
supposed to be authōrem) for auteur, poids (supposed to be from
pondus, really from pēnsum) for pois, were the rule. But besides
the etymological, there was a phonetic school of spelling (Ramus,
in 1562, for instance, writes èime, èimates—with e = é, è = è, and
ę = ǝ—for aimai, aimastes), which, though unsuccessful on the
whole, had some effect in correcting the excesses of the other,
so that in the 17th century most of these inserted letters began to
drop; of those which remain, some (flegme for flemme or fleume,
Latin phlegma) have corrupted the pronunciation. Some important
reforms—as the dropping of silent s, and its replacement
by a circumflex over the vowel when this was long; the
frequent distinction of close and open e by acute and grave
accents; the restriction of i and u to the vowel sound, of j and v
to the consonant; and the introduction from Spain of the cedilla
to distinguish c = s from c = k before a, u and o—are due to the
16th century. The replacement of oi, where it had assumed the
value è, by ai, did not begin till the last century, and was not the
rule till the present one. Indeed, since the 16th century the
changes in French spelling have been small, compared with the
changes of the sounds; final consonants and final e (unaccented)
are still written, though the sounds they represent have disappeared.
Still, a marked effort towards the simplification of French orthography was made in the third edition of the Dictionary of the French Academy (1740), practically the work of the Abbé d’Olivet. While in the first (1694) and second (1718) editions of this dictionary words were overburdened with silent letters, supposed to represent better the etymology, in the third edition the spelling of about 5000 words (out of about 18,000) was altered and made more in conformity with the pronunciation. So, for instance, c was dropped in beinfaicteur and object, ç in sçavoir, d in advocat, s in accroistre, albastre, aspre and bastard, e in the past part. creu, deu, veu, and in such words as alleure, souilleure; y was replaced by i in cecy, celuy, gay, joye, &c. But those changes were not made systematically, and many pedantic spellings were left untouched, while many inconsistencies still remain in the present orthography (siffler and persifler, souffler and boursoufler, &c.). The consequence of those efforts in contrary directions is that French orthography is now quite as traditional and unphonetic as English, and gives an even falser notion than this of the actual state of the language it is supposed to represent. Many of the features of Old French orthography, early and late, are preserved in English orthography; to it we owe the use of c for s (Old English c = k only), of j (i) for dzh, of v (u) for v (in Old English written f), and probably of ch for tsh. The English w is purely French, the Old English letter being the runic þ. When French was introduced into England, kw had not lost its w, and the French qu, with that value, replaced the Old English cþ (queen for cþen). In Norman, Old French ó had become very like u, and in England went entirely into it; o, which was one of its French signs, thus came to be often used for u in English (come for cume). U, having often in Old French its Modern French value, was so used in England, and replaced the Old English y (busy for bysi, Middle English brud for brȳd), and y was often used for i (day for dai). In the 13th century, when ou had come to represent u in France, it was borrowed by English, and used for the long sound of that vowel (sour for sūr); and gu, which had come to mean simply g (hard), was occasionally used to represent the sound g before i and e (guess for gesse). Some of the Early Modern etymological spellings were imitated in England; fleam and autour were replaced by phlegm and authour, the latter spelling having corrupted the pronunciation.
(e) Inflections.—In the earliest Old French extant, the influence of analogy, especially in verbal forms, is very marked when these are compared with Latin (thus the present participles of all conjugations take ant, the ending of the first, Latin antem), and becomes stronger as the language progresses. Such isolated inflectional changes as saveit into savoit, which are cases of regular phonetic changes, are not noticed here.
(i.) Verbs.—(1) In the oldest French texts the Latin pluperfect (with the sense of the perfect) occasionally occurs—avret (habuerat), roveret (rogāverat); it disappears before the 12th century. (2) The u of the ending of the 1st pers. plur. mus drops in Old French, except in the perfect, where its presence (as ǝ) is not yet satisfactorily explained—amoms (amāmus, influenced by sūmus), but amames (amāvimus). In Picard the atonic ending mes is extended to all tenses, giving amomes, &c. (3) In the present indicative, 2nd person plur., the ending ez of the first conjugation (Latin atis) extends, even in the earliest documents, to all verbs—avez, recevez, oez (habetis, recipĭtis, auditis) like amez (amatis); such forms as dites, faites (dicĭtis, facĭtis) being exceptional archaisms. This levelling of the conjugation does not appear at such an early time in the future (formed from the infinitive and from habētis reduced to ētis); in the Roland both forms occur, portereiz (portare habētis) assonating on rei (roi, rēgem), and the younger porterez on citet (cité, cīvitātem), but about the end of the 13th century the older form -eiz, -oiz, is dropped, and -ez becomes gradually the uniform ending for this 2nd person of the plural in the future tense. (4) In Eastern French the 1st plur., when preceded by i, has e, not o, before the nasal, while Western French has u (or o), as in the present; posciomes (posseāmus) in the Jonah homily makes it probable that the latter is the older form—Picard aviemes, Burgundian aviens, Norman
