Word: old
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1890-1899
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Latin language was brought into the territory we now call France and in the nothern part, after successive alterations that affected the pronunciation, inflections and syntax, and after borrowing from the speech of the Germanic Franks, has become the French language. We sometimes speak of AngloSaxon as old English; with the same right we may call modern French Latin. We may do this with even better right in the latter case, for French has not suffered so much from outside changes as English. The effects of the language of the Franks on French were not so deep and lasting...
...Englishman of the day. But the eu, as in coleur, apparently did not exist. In its place, however, are found two other sounds, one something like o, and the other a dipthongal sound not unlike the first two letters of wet. Mute edid exist, but was invariably pronounced. The old French pronunciation for un and une may have been une for the former and une for the latter...
Beside the open and closed sound of e, as in modern French, there was still a third sound in old French, about which we can only theorize. It may have been like one of the other two except in length...
...nasal vowels there was a decided difference, but we are unable to state just the amount of it. We know that there were two nasal vowels in old French, a and e before nasal consonants. But there is this striking difference that the n is not swallowed up in the vowel, but that an and en were possibly pronounced after the English fashion...
...apparent diphthongs in modern French, ai, ei, eu, ou and au, were pronounced separately in old Frence. Exception must be made in this case to au, for it does not appear in old writings, although it may have existed in speech. The sound oi, which seems so eminently English, is in reality of old French origin...