Chapter V: H. B (18)

French Guinea was made a colony independent of Senegal in 1891, but in 1895 came under the supreme authority of the newly constituted governor-generalship of French West Africa. Guinea has a considerable measure of autonomy and a separate budget. It is administered by a lieutenant-governor, assisted by a nominated council. Revenue is raised principally from customs and a capitation tax, which has replaced a hut tax. The local budget for 1907 balanced at L205,000. Over the greater part of the country the native princes retain their sovereignty under the superintendence of French officials. The development of agriculture and education are objects of special solicitude to the French authorities. In general the natives are friendly towards their white masters.

See M. Famechon, _Notice sur la Guinee francaise_ (Paris, 1900); J.
Chautard, _Etude geophysique et geologique sur le Fouta-Djallon_
(Paris, 1905); Andre Arcin, _La Guinee francaise_ (Paris, 1906), a
valuable monograph; J. Machat, _Les Rivieres du Sud et la
Fouta-Diallon_ (Paris, 1906), another valuable work, containing
exhaustive bibliographies. Consult also F. Rouget, _La Guinee_ (Paris,
1908), an official publication, the annual _Reports_ on French West
Africa, published by the British Foreign Office, and the Carte de la
Guinee francaise by A. Meunier in 4 sheets on the scale 1:500,000
(Paris, 1902).

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Numerous remains of a stone age have been discovered, both on the
coast and in the hinterland. See L. Desplagnes, "L'Archeologie
prehistorique en Guinee francaise," in _Bull. Soc. Geog. Comm. de
Bordeaux_, March 1907, and the authorities there cited.

FRENCH LANGUAGE. I. _Geography._--French is the general name of the north-north-western group of Romanic dialects, the modern Latin of northern Gaul (carried by emigration to some places--as lower Canada--out of France). In a restricted sense it is that variety of the Parisian dialect which is spoken by the educated, and is the general literary language of France. The region in which the native language is termed French consists of the northern half of France (including Lorraine) and parts of Belgium and Switzerland; its boundaries on the west are the Atlantic Ocean and the Celtic dialects of Brittany; on the north-west and north, the English Channel; on the north-east and east the Teutonic dialects of Belgium, Germany and Switzerland. In the south-east and south the boundary is to a great extent conventional and ill-defined, there being originally no linguistic break between the southern French dialects and the northern Provencal dialects of southern France, north-western Italy and south-western Switzerland. It is formed partly by spaces of intermediate dialects (some of whose features are French, others Provencal), partly by spaces of mixed dialects resulting from the invasion of the space by more northern and more southern settlers, partly by lines where the intermediate dialects have been suppressed by more northern (French) and more southern (Provencal) dialects without these having mixed. Starting in the west at the mouth of the Gironde, the boundary runs nearly north soon after passing Bordeaux; a little north of Angouleme it turns to the east, and runs in this direction into Switzerland to the north of Geneva.

II. _External History._--(a) _Political._--By the Roman conquests the language of Rome was spread over the greater part of southern and western Europe, and gradually supplanted the native tongues. The language introduced was at first nearly uniform over the whole empire, Latin provincialisms and many more or less general features of the older vulgar language being suppressed by the preponderating influence of the educated speech of the capital. As legions became stationary, as colonies were formed, and as the natives adopted the language of their conquerors, this language split up into local dialects, the distinguishing features of which are due, as far as can be ascertained (except, to some extent, as to the vocabulary), not to speakers of different nationalities misspeaking Latin, each with the peculiarities of his native language, but to the fact that linguistic changes, which are ever occurring, are not perfectly uniform over a large area, however homogeneous the speakers. As Gaul was not conquered by Caesar till the middle of the first century before our era, its Latin cannot have begun to differ from that of Rome till after that date; but the artificial retention of classical Latin as the literary and official language after the popular spoken language had diverged from it, often renders the chronology of the earlier periods of the Romanic languages obscure. It is, however, certain that the popular Latin of Gaul had become differentiated from that of central Italy before the Teutonic conquest of Gaul, which was not completed till the latter half of the 5th century; the invaders gradually adopted the language of their more civilized subjects, which remained unaffected, except in its vocabulary. Probably by this time it had diverged so widely from the artificially preserved literary language that it could no longer be regarded merely as mispronounced Latin; the Latin documents of the next following centuries contain many clearly popular words and forms, and the literary and popular languages are distinguished as _latina_ and _romana_. The term _gallica_, at first denoting the native Celtic language of Gaul, is found applied to its supplanter before the end of the 9th century, and survives in the Breton _gallek_, the regular term for "French." After the Franks in Gaul had abandoned their native Teutonic language, the term _francisca_, by which this was denoted, came to be applied to the Romanic one they adopted, and, under the form _francaise_, remains its native name to this day; but this name was confined to the Romanic of northern Gaul, which makes it probable that this, at the time of the adoption of the name _francisca_, had become distinct from the Romanic of southern Gaul. _Francisca_ is the Teutonic adjective _frankisk_, which occurs in Old English in the form _frencise_; this word, with its umlauted _e_ from _a_ with following _i_, survives under the form _French_, which, though purely Teutonic in origin and form, has long been exclusively applied to the Romanic language and inhabitants of Gaul. The German name _franzose_, with its accent on, and _o_ in, the second syllable, comes from _francois_, a native French form older than _francais_, but later than the Early Old French _franceis_. The Scandinavian settlers on the north-west coast of France early in the 10th century quickly lost their native speech, which left no trace except in some contributions to the vocabulary of the language they adopted. The main feature since is the growth of the political supremacy of Paris, carrying with it that of its dialect; in 1539 Francis I. ordered that all public documents should be in French (of Paris), which then became the official language of the whole kingdom, though it is still foreign to nearly half its population.

The conquest of England in 1066 by William, duke of Normandy, introduced into England, as the language of the rulers and (for a time) most of the writers, the dialects spoken in Normandy (see also ANGLO-NORMAN LITERATURE). Confined in their native country to definite areas, these dialects, following their speakers, became mixed in England, so that their forms were used to some extent indifferently; and the constant communication with Normandy maintained during several reigns introduced also later forms of continental Norman. As the conquerors learned the language of the conquered, and as the more cultured of the latter learned that of the former, the Norman of England (including that of the English-speaking Lowlands of Scotland) became anglicized; instead of following the changes of the Norman of France, it followed those of English. The accession in 1154 of Henry II. of Anjou disturbed the Norman character of Anglo-French, and the loss of Normandy under John in 1204 gave full play to the literary importance of the French of Paris, many of whose forms afterwards penetrated to England. At the same time English, with a large French addition to its vocabulary, was steadily recovering its supremacy, and is officially employed (for the first time since the Conquest) in the Proclamation of Henry III., 1258. The semi-artificial result of this mixture of French of different dialects and of different periods, more or less anglicized according to the date or education of the speaker or writer, is generally termed "the Anglo-Norman dialect"; but the term is misleading for a great part of its existence, because while the French of Normandy was not a single dialect, the later French of England came from other French provinces besides Normandy, and being to a considerable extent in artificial conditions, was checked in the natural development implied by the term "dialect." The disuse of Anglo-French as a natural language is evidenced by English being substituted for it in legal proceedings in 1362, and in schools in 1387; but law reports were written in it up to about 1600, and, converted into modern literary French, it remains in official use for giving the royal assent to bills of parliament.

(b) _Literary._--Doubtless because the popular Latin of northern Gaul changed more rapidly than that of any other part of the empire, French was, of all the Romanic dialects, the first to be recognized as a distinct language, and the first to be used in literature; and though the oldest specimen now extant is probably not the first, it is considerably earlier than any existing documents of the allied languages. In 813 the council of Tours ordered certain homilies to be translated into Rustic Roman or into German; and in 842 Louis the German, Charles the Bald, and their armies confirmed their engagements by taking oaths in both languages at Strassburg. These have been preserved to us by the historian Nithard (who died in 853); and though, in consequence of the only existing manuscript (at Paris) being more than a century later than the time of the author, certain alterations have occurred in the text of the French oaths, they present more archaic forms (probably of North-Eastern French) than any other document. The next memorials are a short poem, probably North-Eastern, on St Eulalia, preserved in a manuscript of the 10th century at Valenciennes, and some autograph fragments (also at Valenciennes) of a homily on the prophet Jonah, in mixed Latin and Eastern French, of the same period. To the same century belong a poem on Christ's Passion, apparently in a mixed (not intermediate) language of French and Provencal, and one, probably in South-Eastern French, on St Leger; both are preserved, in different handwritings, in a MS. at Clermont-Ferrand, whose scribes have introduced many Provencal forms. After the middle of the 11th century literary remains are comparatively numerous; the chief early representative of the main dialects are the following, some of them preserved in several MSS., the earliest of which, however (the only ones here mentioned), are in several cases a generation or two later than the works themselves. In Western French are a verse life of St Alexius (Alexis), probably Norman, in an Anglo-Norman MS. at Hildesheim; the epic poem of Roland, possibly also Norman, in an A.-N. MS. at Oxford; a Norman verbal translation of the Psalms, in an A.-N. MS. also at Oxford; another later one, from a different Latin version, in an A.-N. MS. at Cambridge; a Norman translation of the Four Books of Kings, in a probably A.-N. MS. at Paris. The earliest work in the Parisian dialect is probably the Travels of Charlemagne, preserved in a late Anglo-Norman MS. with much altered forms. In Eastern French, of rather later date, there are translations of the Dialogues of Pope Gregory, in a MS. at Paris, containing also fragments of Gregory's Moralities, and (still later) of some Sermons of St Bernard, in a MS. also in Paris. From the end of the 12th century literary and official documents, often including local charters, abound in almost every dialect, until the growing influence of Paris caused its language to supersede in writing the other local ones. This influence, occasionally apparent about the end of the 12th century, was overpowering in the 15th, when authors, though often displaying provincialisms, almost all wrote in the dialect of the capital; the last dialect to lose its literary independence was the North-Eastern, which, being the Romanic language of Flanders, had a political life of its own, and (modified by Parisian) was used in literature after 1400.

III. _Internal History._--Though much has been done in recent years, in the scientific investigation of the sounds, inflexions, and syntax of the older stages and dialects of French, much still remains to be done, and it must suffice here to give a sketch, mainly of the dialects which were imported into England by the Normans--in which English readers will probably take most interest, and especially of the features which explain the forms of English words of French origin. Dates and places are only approximations, and many statements are liable to be modified by further researches. The primitive Latin forms given are often not classical Latin words, but derivatives from these; and reference is generally made to the Middle English (Chaucerian) pronunciation of English words, not the modern.

(a) _Vocabulary._--The fundamental part of the vocabulary of French is the Latin imported into Gaul, the French words being simply the Latin words themselves, with the natural changes undergone by all living speech, or derivatives formed at various dates. Comparatively few words were introduced from the Celtic language of the native inhabitants (_bec_, _lieue_ from the Celtic words given by Latin writers as _beccus_, _leuca_), but the number adopted from the language of the Teutonic conquerors of Gaul is large (_guerre_ = _werra_; _laid_ = _laidh_; _choisir_ = _kausjan_). The words were imported at different periods of the Teutonic supremacy, and consequently show chronological differences in their sounds (_hair_ = _hatan_; _francais_ = _frankisk_; _ecrevisse_ = _krebiz_; _echine_ = _skina_). Small separate importations of Teutonic words resulted from the Scandinavian settlement in France, and the commercial intercourse with the Low German nations on the North Sea (_friper_ = Norse _hripa_; _chaloupe_ = Dutch _sloop_; _est_ = Old English _east_). In the meantime, as Latin (with considerable alterations in pronunciation, vocabulary, &c.) continued in literary, official and ecclesiastical use, the popular language borrowed from time to time various more or less altered classical Latin words; and when the popular language came to be used in literature, especially in that of the church, these importations largely increased (_virginitet_ Eulalia = _virginitatem_; _imagena_ Alexis = _imaginem_--the popular forms would probably have been _vergedet_, _emain_). At the Renaissance they became very abundant, and have continued since, stifling to some extent the developmental power of the language. Imported words, whether Teutonic, classical Latin or other, often receive some modification at their importation, and always take part in all subsequent natural phonetic changes in the language (Early Old French _adversarie_, Modern French _adversaire_). Those French words which appear to contradict the phonetic laws were mostly introduced into the language after the taking place (in words already existing in the language) of the changes formulated by the laws in question; compare the late imported _laique_ with the inherited _lai_, both from Latin _laicum_. In this and many other cases the language possesses two forms of the same Latin word, one descended from it, the other borrowed (_meuble_ and _mobile_ from _mobilem_). Some Oriental and other foreign words were brought in by the crusaders (_amiral_ from _amir_); in the 16th century, wars, royal marriages and literature caused a large number of Italian words (_soldat_ = _soldato_; _brave_ = _bravo_; _caresser_ = _carezzare_) to be introduced, and many Spanish ones (_alcove_ = _alcoba_; _habler_ = _hablar_). A few words have been furnished by Provencal (_abeille_, _cadenas_), and several have been adopted from other dialects into the French of Paris (_esquiver_ Norman or Picard for the Paris-French _eschiver_). German has contributed a few (_blocus_ = _blochus_; _choucroute_ = _surkrut_); and recently a considerable number have been imported from England (_drain_, _confortable_, _flirter_). In Old French, new words are freely formed by derivation, and to a less extent by composition; in Modern French, borrowing from Latin or other foreign languages is the more usual course. Of the French words now obsolete some have disappeared because the things they express are obsolete; others have been replaced by words of native formation, and many have been superseded by foreign words generally of literary origin; of those which survive, many have undergone considerable alterations in meaning. A large number of Old French words and meanings, now extinct in the language of Paris, were introduced into English after the Norman Conquest; and though some have perished, many have survived--_strife_ from Old French _estrif_ (Teutonic _strit_); _quaint_ from _cointe_ (_cognitum_); _remember_ from _remembrer_ (_rememorare_); _chaplet_ (garland) from _chapelet_ (Modern French "chaplet of beads"); _appointment_ (rendezvous) from _appointement_ (now "salary"). Many also survive in other French dialects.

(b) _Dialects._--The history of the French language from the period of its earliest extant literary memorials is that of the dialects composing it. But as the popular notion of a dialect as the speech of a definite area, possessing certain peculiarities confined to and extending throughout that area, is far from correct, it will be advisable to drop the misleading divisions into "Norman dialect," "Picard dialect" and the like, and take instead each important feature in the chronological order (as far as can be ascertained) of its development, pointing out roughly the area in which it exists, and its present state. The local terms used are intentionally vague, and it does not, for instance, at all follow that because "Eastern" and "Western" are used to denote the localities of more than one dialectal feature, the boundary line between the two divisions is the same in each case. It is, indeed, because dialectal differences as they arise do not follow the same boundary lines (much less the political divisions of provinces), but cross one another to any extent, that to speak of the dialect of a large area as an individual whole, unless that area is cut off by physical or alien linguistic boundaries, creates only confusion. Thus the Central French of Paris, the ancestor of classical Modern French, agrees with a more southern form of Romanic (Limousin, Auvergne, Forez, Lyonnais, Dauphine) in having _ts_, not _tsh_, for Latin _k_ (_c_) before _i_ and _e_; _tsh_, not _k_, for _k_ (_c_) before _a_; and with the whole South in having _gu_, not _w_, for Teutonic _w_; while it belongs to the East in having _oi_ for earlier _ei_; and to the West in having _e_, not _ei_, for Latin _a_; and _i_, not _ei_, from Latin _e_ + _i_. It may be well to denote that Southern _French_ does not correspond to southern _France_, whose native language is Provencal. "Modern French" means ordinary educated Parisian French.

(e) _Phonology._--The history of the sounds of a language is, to a considerable extent, that of its inflections, which, no less than the body of a word, are composed of sounds. This fact, and the fact that unconscious changes are much more reducible to law than conscious ones, render the phonology of a language by far the surest and widest foundation for its dialectology, the importance of the sound-changes in this respect depending, not on their prominence, but on the earliness of their date. For several centuries after the divergence between spoken and written Latin, the history of these changes has to be determined mainly by reasoning, aided by a little direct evidence in the misspellings of inscriptions the semi-popular forms in glossaries, and the warnings of Latin grammarians against vulgarities. With the rise of Romanic literature the materials for tracing the changes become abundant, though as they do not give us the sounds themselves, but only their written representations, much difficulty, and some uncertainty, often attach to deciphering the evidence. Fortunately, early Romanic orthography, that of Old French included (for which see next section), was phonetic, as Italian orthography still is; the alphabet was imperfect, as many new sounds had to be represented which were not provided for in the Roman alphabet from which it arose, but writers aimed at representing the sounds they uttered, not at using a fixed combination of letters for each word, however they pronounced it.

The characteristics of French as distinguished from the allied languages and from Latin, and the relations of its sounds, inflections and syntax to those of the last-named language, belong to the general subject of the Romanic languages. It will be well, however, to mention here some of the features in which it agrees with the closely related Provencal, and some in which it differs. As to the latter, it has already been pointed out that the two languages glide insensibly into one another, there being a belt of dialects which possess some of the features of each. French and Provencal of the 10th century--the earliest date at which documents exist in both--agree to a great extent in the treatment of Latin final consonants and the vowels preceding them, a matter of great importance for inflections (numerous French examples occur in this section), (1) They reject all vowels, except _a_, of Latin final (unaccented) syllables, unless preceded by certain consonant combinations or followed by _nt_ (here, as elsewhere, certain exceptions cannot be noticed); (2) they do not reject _a_ similarly situated; (3) they reject final (unaccented) _m_; (4) they retain final s. French and Northern Provencal also agree in changing Latin _ue_ from a labio-guttural to a labio-palatal vowel; the modern sound (German _ue_) of the accented vowel of French _lune_, Provencal _luna_, contrasting with that in Italian and Spanish _luna_, appears to have existed before the earliest extant documents. The final vowel laws generally apply to the unaccented vowel preceding the accented syllable, if it is preceded by another syllable, and followed by a single consonant--_matin_ (_matutinum_), _dortoir_ (_dormitorium_), with vowel dropped; _canevas_ (_cannabaceum_), _armedure_, later _armeure_, now _armure_ (_armaturam_), with _e_ = _[schwa]_, as explained below.

On the other hand, French differs from Provencal: (1) in uniformly preserving (in Early Old French) Latin final _t_, which is generally rejected in Provencal--French _aimet_ (Latin _amat_), Provencal _ama_; _aiment_ (_amant_), Prov. _aman_; (2) in always rejecting, absorbing or consonantizing the vowel of the last syllable but one, if unaccented; in such words as _angele_ (often spelt _angle_), the _e_ after the _g_ only serves to show its soft sound--French _veintre_ (now _vaincre_, Latin _vincere_), Prov. _vencer_, with accent on first syllable; French _esclandre_ (_scandalum_), Prov. _escandol_; French _olie_ (dissyllabic, _i_ = _y_ consonant, now _huile_), Prov. _oli_ (_oleum_); (3) in changing accented _a_ not in position into _ai_ before nasals and gutturals and not after a palatal, and elsewhere into _e_ (West French) or _ei_ (East French), which develops an _i_ before it when preceded by a palatal--French _main_ (Latin _manum_), Prov. _man_; _aigre_ (_acrem_), _agre_; _ele_ (_alam_), East French _eile_, Prov. _ala_; _meitie_ (_medietatem_), East French _moitieit_, Prov. _meitat_; (4) in changing _a_ in unaccented final syllables into the vowel _[schwa]_, intermediate to _a_ and _e_; this vowel is written _a_ in one or two of the older documents, elsewhere _e_--French _aime_ (Latin _ama_), Prov. _ama_; _aimes_ (_amas_), Prov. _amas_; _aimet_ (_amat_), Prov. _ama_; (5) in changing original _au_ into _o_--French _or_ (_aurum_), Prov. _aur_; _rober_ (Teutonic _raubon_), Prov. _raubar_; (6) in changing general Romanic _e_, from accented _e_ and _i_ not in position, into _ei_--French _veine_ (_venam_), Prov. _vena_; _peil_ (_pilum_), Prov. _pel_.

As some of the dialectal differences were in existence at the date of the earliest extant documents, and as the existing materials, till the latter half of the 11th century, are scanty and of uncertain locality, the chronological order (here adopted) of the earlier sound-changes is only tentative.

(1) Northern French has _tsh_ (written _c_ or _ch_) for Latin _k_
(_c_) and _t_ before palatal vowels, where Central and Southern French
have _ts_ (written _c_ or _z_)--North Norman and Picard _chire_
(_ceram_), _brach_ (_brachium_), _plache_ (_plateam_); Parisian, South
Norman, &c., _cire_, _braz_, _place_. Before the close of the Early
Old French period (12th century) _ts_ loses its initial consonant, and
the same happened to _tsh_ a century or two later; with this change
the old distinction is maintained--Modern Guernsey and Picard _chire_,
Modern Picard _plache_ (in ordinary Modern French spelling); usual
French _cire_, _place_. English, having borrowed from North and South
Norman (and later Parisian), has instances of both _tsh_ and _s_, the
former in comparatively small number--_chisel_ (Modern French _ciseau_
= (?) _caesellum_), _escutcheon_ (_ecusson_, _scutionem_); _city_
(_cite_, _civitatem_), _place_. (2) Initial Teutonic _w_ is retained
in the north-east and along the north coast; elsewhere, as in the
other Romance languages, _g_ was prefixed--Picard, &c., _warde_
(Teutonic _warda_), _werre_ (_werra_); Parisian, &c., _guarde_,
_guerre_. In the 12th century the _u_ or _w_ of _gu_ dropped, giving
the Modern French _garde_, _guerre_ (with _gu_ = _g_); _w_ remains in
Picard and Walloon, but in North Normandy it becomes _v_--Modern
Guernsey _vason_, Walloon _wazon_, Modern French _gazon_ (Teutonic
_wason_). English has both forms, sometimes in words originally the
same--_wage_ and _gage_ (Modern French _gage_, Teutonic _wadi_);
_warden_ and _guardian_ (_gardien_, _warding_). (3) Latin _b_ after
accented _a_ in the imperfect of the first conjugation, which becomes
_v_ in Eastern French, in Western French further changes to _w_, and
forms the diphthong _ou_ with the preceding vowel--Norman _amowe_
(_amabam_), _portout_ (_portabat_); Burgundian _ameve_, _portevet_.
_-eve_ is still retained in some places, but generally the imperfect
of the first conjugation is assimilated to that of the others--amoit,
like _avoit_ (_habebat_). (4) The palatalization of every then
existing _k_ and _g_ (hard) when followed by _a_, _i_ or _e_, after
having caused the development of _i_ before the _e_ (East French _ei_)
derived from _a_ not in position, is abandoned in the north, the
consonants returning to ordinary _k_ or _g_, while in the centre and
south they are assibilated to _tsh_ or _dzh_--North Norman and Picard
_cachier_ (_captiare_), _kier_ (_carum_), _cose_ (_causam_), _eskiver_
(Teutonic _skiuhan_), _wiket_ (Teutonic _wik_+_ittum_), _gal_
(_gallum_), _gardin_ (from Teutonic _gard_); South Norman and Parisian
_chacier_, _chier_, _chose_, _eschiver_, _guichet_, _jal_, _jardin_.
Probably in the 14th century the initial consonant of _tsh_, _dzh_
disappeared, giving the modern French _chasser_, _jardin_ with _ch_ =
_sh_ and _j_ = _zh_; but _tsh_ is retained in Walloon, and _dzh_ in
Lorraine. The Northern forms survive--Modern Guernsey _cachier_,
_gardin_; Picard _cacher_, _gardin_. English possesses numerous
examples of both forms, sometimes in related words--_catch_ and
_chase_; _wicket_, _eschew_; _garden_, _jaundice_ (_jaunisse_, from
_galbanum_). (5) For Latin accented _a_ not in position Western French
usually has _e_, Eastern French _ei_, both of which take an _i_ before
them when a palatal precedes--Norman and Parisian _per_ (_parem_),
_oiez_ (_audiatis_); Lorraine _peir_, _oieis_. In the 17th and 18th
centuries close _e_ changed to open _e_, except when final or before a
silent consonant--_amer_ (_amarum_) now having _e_, _aimer_ (_amare_)
retaining _e_. English shows the Western close _e_--_peer_ (Modern
French _pair_, Old French _per_), _chief_ (_chef_, _caput_); Middle
High German the Eastern _ei_--_lameir_ (Modern French _l'amer_,
_l'aimer_, _la mer_ = Latin _mare_). (6) Latin accented _e_ not in
position, when it came to be followed in Old French by _i_ unites with
this to form _i_ in the Western dialects, while the Eastern have the
diphthongs _ei_--Picard, Norman and Parisian _pire_ (_pejor_), _piz_
(_pectus_); Burgundian _peire_, _peiz_. The distinction is still
preserved--Modern French _pire_, _pis_; Modern Burgundian _peire_,
_pei_. English words show always _i_--_price_ (_prix_, _pretium_)
_spite_ (_depit_, _despectum_). (7) The nasalization of vowels
followed by a nasal consonant did not take place simultaneously with
all the vowels. _A_ and _e_ before _n_ (guttural _n_, as in _sing_),
_n_ (palatal _n_), _n_ and _m_ were nasal in the 11th century, such
words as _tant_ (_tantum_) and _gent_ (_gentem_) forming in the Alexis
assonances to themselves, distinct from the assonances with _a_ and
_e_ before non-nasal consonants. In the Roland _umbre_ (_ombre_,
_umbram_) and _culchet_ (_couche_, _collocat_), _fier_ (_ferum_) and
_chiens_ (_canes_), _dit_ (_dictum_) and _vint_ (_venit_), _ceinte_
(_cinctam_) and _veie_ (_voie_, _viam_), _brun_ (Teutonic _brun_) and
_fut_ (_fuit_) assonate freely, though _o_ (_u_) before nasals shows a
tendency to separation. The nasalization of _i_ and _u_ (= Modern
French _u_) did not take place till the 16th century; and in all cases
the loss of the following nasal consonant is quite modern, the older
pronunciation of _tant_, _ombre_ being _tant_, _ombr[schwa]_, not as
now _ta_, _obrh_. The nasalization took place whether the nasal
consonant was or was not followed by a vowel, _femme_ (_feminam_),
_honneur_ (_honorem_) being pronounced with nasal vowels m the first
syllable till after the 16th century, as indicated by the doubling of
the nasal consonant in the spelling and by the phonetic change (in
_femme_ and other words) next to be mentioned. English generally has
_au_ (now often reduced to _a_) for Old French _a_--_vaunt_ (_vanter_,
_vanitare_), _tawny_ (_tanne_ (?) Celtic). (8) The assimilation of
_[~e]_ (nasal _e_) to _a_ (nasal _a_) did not begin till the middle of
the 11th century, and is not yet universal, in France, though
generally a century later. In the Alexis nasal _a_ (as in _tant_) is
never confounded with nasal _e_ (as in _gent_) in the assonances,
though the copyist (a century later) often writes _a_ for nasal _e_ in
unaccented syllables, as in _amfant_ (_enfant_, _infantem_); in the
Roland there are several cases of mixture in the assonances, _gent_,
for instance, occurring in _ant_ stanzas, _tant_ in _ent_ ones.
English has several words with _a_ for _e_ before nasals--_rank_
(_rang_, Old French _renc_, Teutonic _hringa_), _pansy_ (_pensee_,
_pensatam_); but the majority show _e_--_enter_ (_entrer_, _intrare_),
_fleam_ (_flamme_, Old French _fleme_, _phlebotomum_). The distinction
is still preserved in the Norman of Guernsey, where _an_ and _en_,
though both nasal, have different sounds--_lanchier_ (_lancer_,
_lanceare_), but _mentrie_ (Old French _menterie_, from _mentiri_).
(9) The loss of _s_, or rather _z_, before voiced consonants began
early, _s_ being often omitted or wrongly inserted in 12th century
MSS.--Earliest Old French _masle_ (_masculum_), _sisdre_ (_siceram_);
Modern French _male_, _cidre_. In English it has everywhere
disappeared--_male_, _cider_; except in two words, where it appears,
as occasionally in Old French, as _d_--_meddle_ (_meler_,
_misculare_), _medlar_ (_neflier_, Old French also _meslier_,
_mespilarium_). The loss of _s_ before voiceless consonants (except
_f_) is about two centuries later, and it is not universal even in
Parisian--Early Old French _feste_ (_festam_), _escuier_
(_scutarium_); Modern French _fete_, _ecuyer_, but _esperer_
(_sperare_). In the north-east _s_ before _t_ is still
retained--Walloon _chestai_ (_chateau_, _castellum_), _fiess_
(_fete_). English shows _s_ regularly--_feast_, _esquire_. (10) Medial
_dh_ (soft _th_, as in _then_), and final _th_ from Latin _t_ or _d_
between vowels, do not begin to disappear till the latter half of the
11th century. In native French MSS. _dh_ is generally written _d_, and
_th_ written _t_; but the German scribe of the Oaths writes _adjudha_
(_adjutam_), _cadhuna_ (Greek _kata_ and _unam_); and the English one
of the Alexis _cuntretha_ (_contratam_), _lothet_ (_laudatum_), and
that of the Cambridge Psalter _heriteth_ (_hereditatem_). Medial _dh_
often drops even in the last-named MSS., and soon disappears; the same
is true for final _th_ in Western French--Modern French _contree_,
_loue_. But in Eastern French final _th_, to which Latin _t_ between
vowels had probably been reduced through _d_ and _dh_, appears in the
12th century and later as _t_, rhyming on ordinary French final
_t_--Picard and Burgundian _pechiet_ (_peccatum_) _apeleit_
(_appellatum_). In Western French some final _ths_ were saved by being
changed to _f_--Modern French _soif_ (_sitim_), _moeuf_ (obsolete,
_modum_). English has one or two instances of final _th_, none of
medial _dh_--_faith_ (_foi_, _fidem_); Middle English _cariteț_
(_charite_, _caritatem_), _druteth_ (Old French _dru_, Teutonic _drud_);
generally the consonant is lost--_country_, _charity_. Middle High
German shows the Eastern French final consonant--_moraliteit_
(_moralite_, _moralitatem_). (11) _T_ from Latin final _t_, if in an
Old French unaccented syllable, begins to disappear in the Roland,
where sometimes _aimet_ (_amat_), sometimes _aime_, is required by the
metre, and soon drops in all dialects. The Modern French _t_ of
_aime-t-il_ and similar forms is an analogical insertion from such
forms as _dort-il_ (_dormit_), where the _t_ has always existed. (12)
The change of the diphthong _ai_ to _ei_ and afterwards to _ee_ (the
doubling indicates length) had not taken place in the earliest French
documents, words with _ai_ assonating only on words with _a_; in the
Roland such assonances occur, but those of _ai_ on _e_ are more
frequent--_faire_ (_facere_) assonating on _parastre_ (_patraster_)
and on _estes_ (_estis_); and the MS. (half a century later than the
poem) occasionally has _ei_ and _e_ for _ai_--_recleimet_
(_reclamat_), _desfere_ (_disfacere_), the latter agreeing with the
Modern French sound. Before nasals (as in _laine_ = _lanam_) and _ie_
(as in _paye_ = _pacatum_), _ai_ remained a diphthong up to the 16th
century, being apparently _ei_, whose fate in this situation it has
followed. English shows _ai_ regularly before nasals and when final,
and in a few other words--_vain_ (_vain_, _vanum_), _pay_ (_payer_,
_pacare_), _wait_ (_guetter_, Teutonic _wahten_); but before most
consonants it has usually _ee_--_peace_ (_pais_, _pacum_), _feat_
(_fait_, _factum_). (13) The loss or transposition of _i_
(= y-consonant) following the consonant ending an accented syllable
begins in the 12th century--Early Old French _glorie_ (_gloriam_),
_estudie_ (_studium_), _olie_ (_oleum_); Modern French _gloire_,
_etude_, _huile_. English sometimes shows the earlier form--_glory_,
_study_; sometimes the later--_dower_ (_douaire_, Early Old French
_doarie_, _dotarium_), _oil_ (_huile_). (14) The vocalization of _l_
preceded by a vowel and followed by a consonant becomes frequent at
the end of the 12th century; when preceded by open _e_, an _a_
developed before the _l_ while this was a consonant--11th century
_salse_ (_salsa_), _beltet_ (_bellitatem_), _solder_ (_solidare_);
Modern French _sauce_, _beaute_, _souder_. In Parisian, final _el_
followed the fate of _el_ before a consonant, becoming the triphthong
_eau_, but in Norman the vocalization did not take place, and the _l_
was afterwards rejected--Modern French _ruisseau_, Modern Guernsey
_russe_ (_rivicellum_). English words of French origin sometimes show
_l_ before a consonant, but the general form is _u_--_scald_
(_echauder_, _excalidare_), _Walter_ (_Gautier_, Teutonic _Waldhari_);
_sauce_, _beauty_, _soder_. Final _el_ is kept--_veal_ (_veau_,
_vitellum_), _seal_ (_sceau_, _sigillum_). (15) In the east and centre
_ei_ changes to _oi_, while the older sound is retained in the
north-west and west--Norman _estreit_ (_etroit_, _strictum_), _preie_
(_proie_, _praedam_), 12th century Picard, Parisian, &c., _estroit_,
_proie_. But the earliest (10th century) specimens of the latter group
of dialects have _ei_--_pleier_ (_ployer_, _plicare_) Eulalia,
_mettreiet_ (_mettrait_, _mittere habebat_) Jonah. Parisian _oi_,
whether from _ei_ or from Old French _oi_, _oi_, became in the 15th
century _ue_ (spellings with _oue_ or _oe_ are not uncommon--_mirouer_
for _miroir_, _miratorium_), and in the following, in certain words,
_e_, now written _ai_--_francais_, _connaitre_, from _francois_
(_franceis_, _franciscum_), _conoistre_ (_conuistre_, _cognoscere_);
where it did not undergo the latter change it is now _ua_ or
_wa_--_roi_ (_rei_, _regem_), _croix_ (_cruis_, _crucem_). Before
nasals and palatal _l_, _ei_ (now = _e_) was kept--_veine_ (_vena_),
_veille_ (_vigila_), and it everywhere survives unlabialized in Modern
Norman--Guernsey _etelle_ (_etoile_, _stella_) with _e_, _ser_
(_soir_, _serum_) with _e_. English shows generally _ei_ (or _ai_) for
original _ei_--_strait_ (_estreit_), _prey_ (_preie_); but in several
words the later Parisian _oi_--_coy_ (_coi_, _qvietum_), _loyal_
(_loyal_, _legalem_). (16) The splitting of the vowel-sound from
accented Latin _o_ or _u_ not in position, represented in Old French
by _o_ and _u_ indifferently, into _u_, _o_ (before nasals), and _eu_
(the latter at first a diphthong, now = German _oe_), is unknown to
Western French till the 12th century, and is not general in the east.
The sound in 11th century Norman was much nearer to _u_ (Modern French
_ou_) than to _o_ (Modern French _o_), as the words borrowed by
English show _uu_ (at first written _u_, afterwards _ou_ or _ow_),
never _oo_; but was probably not quite _u_, as Modern Norman shows the
same splitting of the sound as Parisian. Examples are--Early Old
French _espose_ or _espuse_ (_sponsam_), _nom_ or _num_ (_nomen_),
_flor_ or _flur_ (_florem_); Modern French _epouse_, _nom_, _fleur_;
Modern Guernsey _goule_ (_gueule_, _gulam_), _nom_, _flleur_. Modern
Picard also shows _u_, which is the regular sound before _r_--_flour_;
but Modern Burgundian often keeps the original Old French _o_--_vo_
(_vous_, _vos_). English shows almost always _uu_--_spouse_, _noun_,
_flower_ (Early Middle English _spuse_, _nun_, _flur_); but _nephew_
with _eu_ (_neveu_, _nepotem_). (17) The loss of the _u_ (or _w_) of
_qu_ dates from the end of the 12th century--Old French _quart_
(_qvartum_), _quitier_ (_qvietare_) with _qu_ = _kw_, Modern French
_quart_, _quitter_ with _qu_ = _k_. In Walloon the _w_ is
preserved--_couar_ (_quart_), _cuitter_; as is the case in
English--_quart_, _quit_. The _w_ of _gw_ seems to have been lost
rather earlier, English having simple _g_--_gage_ (_gage_, older
_guage_, Teutonic _wadi_), _guise_ (_guise_, Teutonic _wisa_). (18)
The change of the diphthong _ou_ to _uu_ did not take place till after
the 12th century, such words as _Anjou_ (_Andegavum_) assonating in
the Roland on _fort_ (_fortem_); and did not occur in Picardy, where
_ou_ became _au caus_ from older _cous_, _cols_ (_cous_, _collos_)
coinciding with _caus_ from _calz_ (_chauds_, _calidos_). English
keeps _ou_ distinct from _uu_--_vault_ for _vaut_ (Modern French
_voute_, _volvitam_), _soder_ (_souder_, _solidare_). (19) The change
of the diphthong _ie_ to simple _e_ is specially Anglo-Norman, in Old
French of the Continent these sounds never rhyme, in that of England
they constantly do, and English words show, with rare exceptions, the
simple vowel--_fierce_ (Old French _fiers_, _ferus_), chief (_chief_,
_caput_), with _ie_ = _ee_; but _pannier_ (_panier_, _panarium_). At
the beginning of the modern period, Parisian dropped the _i_ of _ie_
when preceded by _ch_ or _j_--_chef_, _abreger_ (Old French
_abregier_, _abbreviare_); elsewhere (except in verbs) _ie_ is
retained--_fier_ (_ferum_), _pitie_ (_pietatem_). Modern Guernsey
retains _ie_ after _ch_--_ap'rchier_ (_approcher_, _adpropeare_).(20)
Some of the Modern French changes have found their places under older
ones; those remaining to be noticed are so recent that English
examples of the older forms are superfluous. In the 16th century the
diphthong _au_ changed to _ao_ and then to _o_, its present sound,
rendering, for instance, _maux_ (Old French _mals_, _malos_) identical
with _mots_ (_muttos_). The _au_ of _eau_ underwent the same change,
but its _e_ was still sounded as _[schwa]_ (the _e_ of _que_); in the
next century this was dropped, making _veaux_ (Old French _veels_,
_vitellos_) identical with _vaux_ (_vals_, _valles_). (21) A more
general and very important change began much earlier than the last;
this is the loss of many final consonants. In Early Old French every
consonant was pronounced as written; by degrees many of them
disappeared when followed by another consonant, whether in the same
word (in which case they were generally omitted in writing) or in a
following one. This was the state of things in the 16th century; those
final consonants which are usually silent in Modern French were still
sounded, if before a vowel or at the end of a sentence or a line of
poetry, but generally not elsewhere. Thus a large number of French
words had two forms; the Old French _fort_ appeared as _for_ (though
still written _fort_) before a consonant, fort elsewhere. At a later
period final consonants were lost (with certain exceptions) when the
word stood at the end of a sentence or of a line of poetry; but they
are generally kept when followed by a word beginning with a vowel.
(22) A still later change is the general loss of the vowel (written e)
of unaccented final syllables; this vowel preserved in the 16th
century the sound _[schwa]_, which it had in Early Old French. In
later Anglo-Norman final _[schwa]_ (like every other sound) was
treated exactly as the same sound in Middle English; that is, it came
to be omitted or retained at pleasure, and in the 15th century
disappeared. In Old French the loss of final _[schwa]_ is confined to
a few words and forms; the 10th century _saveiet_ (_sapebat_ for
_sapiebat_) became in the 11th _saveit_, and _ore_ (_ad horam_), _ele_
(_illam_) develop the abbreviated _or, el_. In the 15th century
_[schwa]_ before a vowel generally disappears--_mur_, Old French
_meur_ (_maturum_); and in the 16th, though still written, _[schwa]_
after an unaccented vowel, and in the syllable _ent_ after a vowel,
does the same--_vraiment_, Old French _vraiement_ (_veraca mente_);
_avoient_ two syllables, as now (_avaient_), in Old French three
syllables (as _habebant_). These phenomena occur much earlier in the
anglicized French of England--13th century _aveynt_ (Old French
_aveient_). But the universal loss of final _e_, which has clipped a
syllable from half the French vocabulary, did not take place till the
18th century, after the general loss of final consonants; _fort_ and
_forte_, distinguished at the end of a sentence or line in the 16th
century as _fort_ and _fort[schwa]_, remain distinguished, but as
_for_ and _fort_. The metre of poetry is still constructed on the
obsolete pronunciation, which is even revived in singing; "dites, la
jeune belle," actually four syllables (_dit, la zhoen bel_), is
considered as seven, fitted with music accordingly, and sung to fit
the music (_dit[schwa], la zhoena bel[schwa]_). (23) In Old French, as
in the other Romanic languages, the stress (force, accent) is on the
syllable which was accented in Latin; compare the treatment of the
accented and unaccented vowels in _latro amas_, giving _lere, aime_,
and in _latronem, amatis_, giving _laron, amez_, the accented vowels
being those which rhyme or assonate. At present, stress in French is
much less marked than in English, German or Italian, and is to a
certain extent variable; which is partly the reason why most native
French scholars find no difficulty in maintaining that the stress in
living Modern French is on the same syllable as in Old French. The
fact that stress in the French of to-day is independent of length
(quantity) and pitch (tone) largely aids the confusion; for though the
final and originally accented syllable (not counting the silent e as a
syllable) is now generally pronounced with less force, it very often
has a long vowel with raised pitch. In actual pronunciation the chief
stress is usually on the first syllable (counting according to the
sounds, not the spelling), but in many polysyllables it is on the last
but one; thus in _caution_ the accented (strong) syllable cau, in
_occasion_ it is _ca_. Poetry is still written according to the
original place of the stress; the rhyme-syllables of _larron, aimez_
are still _ron_ and _mez_, which when set to music receive an accented
(strong) note, and are sung accordingly, though in speech the la 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 _[schwa]_ 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--_bete_, Old French _beste_
(_bestiam_), _ame_, Old French _anme_ (_anima_). The same occurred in
the plural of many nouns, where a consonant was lost before the _s_ of
the flection; thus singular _coc_ with short vowel, plural _cos_ with
long. The plural _cos_, though spelt _cogs_ instead of _co_ (= _koo_),
is still sometimes to be heard, but, like other similar ones, is
generally refashioned after the singular, becoming _kok_. In present
French, except where a difference of quality has resulted, as in
_cote_ (Old French _coste, costam_) with _o_ and _cotte_ (Old French
_cote_), with _o_, 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 spelling is based on that of French sounds; as already stated, the former (apart from a few Latinisms in the earliest documents) 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 meantime taken place. Thus, as the Latin sound _u_ had become _o_ (close _o_) and _u_ had become _y_ (French _u_, German _ue_), the letter _u_ was used sometimes to denote the sound _o_, sometimes 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 _k_. 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_, _e_, and _[schwa]_; _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 _o_ (Anglo-Norman _u_) and _o_; _s_ for _s_ and _z_; _t_ for _t_ and _th_; _u_ (_v_) for _o_ (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 _qvi_)--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 _ou_ or _ou_, _ui_ either _oi_ (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 _[~e]_ (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 _kw_ and _gw_, represent _k_ and _g_ (hard); _ai_, from the change of _ai_ to _e_, represents _e_; _ou_, from the change of _ou_ and _ou_ 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 oe (German _oe_); _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 _o_, 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 _e_ (_nez_, _nes_, _nasum_). 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_, _oculos_), 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 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_ (_debere_) for _devoir_, _faulx_ (_falsum_) for _faus_, _autheur_ (_auctorem_, supposed to be _authorem_) for _auteur_, _poids_ (supposed to be from _pondus_, really from _pensum_) for _pois_, were the rule. But besides the etymological, there was a phonetic school of spelling (Ramus, in 1562, for instance, writes _eime_, _eimates_--with _e_ = _e_, _e_ = _e_, and _e_ = _[schwa]_--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 _e_, 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 Abbe 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_, _c_ in _scavoir_, _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 _Ț_. When French was introduced into England, _kw_ had not lost its _w_, and the French _qu_, with that value, replaced the Old English _cȚ_ (_queen_ for _cȚ_en). In Norman, Old French _o_ 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 _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 _sur_); 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.