Word: vowel
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Dates: during 1890-1899
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...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...
...found in church and gentle, although they do not exist in modern French, are found in the French of the eleventh century. There are fewer silent consonants, too, in the older tongure. Final d in modern French is pronounced like t when followed by a word beginning with a vowel. In old French the spelling was made to conform with the pronunciation...
Professor Sheldon in closing, read a selection from the "Chanson de Roland." He called attention to the assonance that takes the place of modern rhyme. The stanzas are irregular but have one vowel sound running throughout...
...think that one great reason for it is to be found in his different system of versification. His measures and rhymes and the greater nicety of ear demanded by them would lead him naturally to a choice of words which would give him a greater number of vowel-sounds and a greater variety of endings. Yet, if we take the beginning of the Romance of the Rose, which, being a translation from the French, would be as likely as anything he wrote to be colored by that language, we shall find that the proportion of French words in it, though...
...final step, the employing of signs to represent single letters is no harder to trace than the preceding transitions. The Egyptians had the first real alphabet, real in the sense of having a sign for each letter. Babylonian and even Arabic have signs for only three of their vowel sounds. The Phoenician people in their commercial relations and in their position as intermediaries between the great nations of the earth, were the first to make a script that was extensively used in the world. Without exception all alphabets have been developed in one way or another from the Phoenician...