Doug Ewell writes:
> <jcowan at reutershealth dot com> wrote:
> > Also, you have to allow for changes in the source: when the name
> > "Leghorn" was coined, Livorno was still called Ligorno.
> >> ("Pair-iss" is a bit over the top; English speakers are
> >> certainly capable of saying "par-ee.")
> >
> > Again, when that name was borrowed, the French were still pronouncing
> > the final -s and had not yet adopted their phrase-final stress rule.
>
> Thanks for those two pearls. I had not heard them before.Neither did I. I suppose you're talking about an old time where even the Old French language was not born (and there were many regional dialects of Celtic or Nordic languages mixed with Latin, before the Nordic dialect spoken in the North-East became a dominant langue d'oÃl, adopted by the kings of the small Kingdom of France, and normalized very later as the "langue franÃoise" by the AcadÃmie FranÃaise of Richelieu, which fixed the rules for its post-medieval orthography. French became the only official language in France only after the Revolution, but has been spoken by a majority of French people only during the 19th century after mandatory and free sholarship was adopted by Jules Ferry... Before that, almost all cities in France had multiple names: one in the official "langue franÃaise", the other using the regional language, with its own orthograph or pronunciation. Paris has always been the capital of the French Kingdom as soon as it was born, and it already used the old Nordic-Latin dialect. The Roman Empire was dead since long, and the "Lutecia" Latin name was dead with it in favor of the Nordic name, which may just have happened to be pronounced differently by other regional dialects based on Celtic+Latin... __________________________________________________________________ << ella for Spam Control >> has removed Spam messages and set aside Newsletters for me You can use it too - and it's FREE! http://www.ellaforspam.com
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