634 FRANCE [LANGUAGE.
and ai generally have the principal stress. In reading poetry, as distinguished from singing, the modern pronunciation is used, both as to the loss of the final e and the displacement of the stress, the result being that the theoretical metre in which the poetry is written disappears. (24.) In certain cases accented vowels were lengthened in Old French, as before a lost s; this was indicated in the 16th century by a circumflex – bête, Old French beste (bestiam), âme, Old French anme (anima). The same occurred in the plural of many nouns, where a consonant was lost before the s of the flexion; thus singular coc with short vowel, plural cos with long. The plural cos, though spelt coqs instead of cô (=kóó), is still sometimes to be heard, but, like other similar ones, is generally refashioned after the singular, becoming kòk. In present French, except where a difference of quality has resulted, as in côte (Old French coste, costam) with ó and cotte (Old French cote) with ò, short and long vowels generally run together, quantity being now variable and uncertain; but at the beginning of this century the Early Modern distinctions appear to have been generally preserved.
(d) Orthography. – The history of French, spellings is
based on that of French sounds; as already stated, the
former (apart from a few Latinisms in the earliest docu
ments) for several centuries faithfully followed the latter.
When the popular Latin of Gaul was first written, its
sounds were represented by the letters of the Roman
alphabet; but these were employed, not in the values they
had in the time of Caesar, but in those they had acquired
in consequence of the phonetic changes that had mean
time taken place. Thus, as the Latin sound u had become
6 (close o) and u had become y (French u, German ii), the
letter u was used sometimes to denote the sound 6, some
times the sound y ; as Latin k (written c) had become
tsh or ts, according to dialect, before e and i, c was used
to represent those sounds as well as that of L The chief
features of early French orthography (apart from the
specialities of individual MSS., especially the earliest) are
therefore these: c stood for k and tsh or ts: d for d and
dh (soft th}; e for e, , and &; 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 6 (Anglo-Norman
it) and o; s tor s and z; t for t and th; u (v) for 6 (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 = Jd from qvl) was used for
it; palatal I was represented by ill, which when final usually
lost one I, and after i dropped its i; palatal n by gn, ng,
or nyn, to which i was often prefixed; and the new letter
iv, originally mi (vv), and sometimes representing merely
uv or vu, was employed for the consonanfe-sound still de
noted by it in English. All combinations of vowel-letters
represented diphthongs; thus ai denoted a followed by i,
ou either ou or on, ui either oi (Anglo-Norman ? ) or yi,
and similarly with the others ei, eu, oi, iu, ie, ue (and oe),
and the triphthong leu. Silent letters, except initial h in
Latin words, are very rare; though MSS. copied from
older ones often retain letters whose sounds, though exist
ing 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 c, (nasal e) to a
(nasal a), represents a; c, from the change of ts to s,
represents s; qu and gu, from the loss of the w of hv and
f/iv, represent k and g (hard); ai, from the change of ai to
e, represents c; ou, from the change of ou and on to it,
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 oe (German o); 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 I- before i and
e was replaced by qu (cvesqne, eveske,"La,t mepiscopum); Old
French u and o for 6, after this sound had split into eu and
it, were replaced in the latter case by ou (rous, for ros or
rus, Latin russitm) ; s was inserted to mark a long vowel
(paalc,pale, Latin pallidum); eu replaced ue and oe (neuf,
nuef, Latin novitm and novem); z replaced s after e (nez,
nes, ndsum). The use of x for final s is due to an ortho
graphical mistake; the MS. contraction of us being some
thing like x was at last confused with it (iex for ieus,
oculds), 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, vocem).
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 tradi
tional 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 (debere) for devoir, faidx (falsum) for
faus, autheur (auctdrem, supposed to be authorem) for
auteur, poids (supposed to be from jtondus, really from
pensum) for pois, were the rule. But besides the etymo
logical, there was a phonetic school of spelling (llamus, for
instance, writes eime, eimates with e = e, e = e, and e = 9
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 (jiegme
f or flemme orfleume, Ija.tinphlegma) have corrupted the pro
nunciation. 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 intro
duction from Spain of the cedilla to distinguish c = s from c
k before a, u, and o are due to the 1 Gth century. The
replacement of oi, where it had assumed the value e, by ai,
did not begin till the last century, and was not the rule
till the present one. Indeed, since the IGth century the
changes in French spelling have been very small, compared
with the changes of the sounds; final consonants and final
e (unaccented) are still written, though the sounds they
represent have disappeared. 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/), and probably of ch for tsh. The Eng
lish w is purely French, the Old English letter being the
runic j>. When French was introduced into England, kw
had not lost its w, and the French qu, with that value,
replaced the Old English cp (queen for cpen). In Norman,
Old French 6 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
cumc). U, having often in Old French its Modern French
value, was so used in England, and replaced the Old Eng
lish y (busy for bysi, Middle English brud for bryd), 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 stir); and gu t which had come to mean
simply g (hard), was occasionally used to represent the