Re: History of French

From: Jacques Guy (jguy_at_alphalink.com.au)
Date: 09/21/04 

Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 20:44:07 -0700

Neeraj Mathur wrote:
 
> Is there not a clas of words in English (and French) whose spellings were
> reformed in the Renaissance, in order to reflect the Latinity of the new
> elite?

Yes. One is "sçapvoir" coined to reflect a false relationship with
"scire"
and a true relationship with "sapere".

> but can we not base the
> argument on 'consensus spellings' if you see what I mean?

No, honestly, I am not sure what you mean by that.
 
> Example: my Old French texts (late 12th and early 13th century works,
> Francien dialect usually) seem to write 'set' consistently (what is the
> manuscript tradition that this editorial spelling is based on, anybody? -
> this is equivalent to the objection above) and the spelling 'sept' was the
> result of an effort to restore Latinity.

Very probably, yes. But Miguel Carrasquer is the one to ask. I don't
know
much about Romance, my field is more Austronesian. And I don't know
one tenth as much about Austronesian as Robert Blust does.
 
> In the same way, certain new coinages in English, when they borrow from
> Greek or Latin sources, preserve approximations to Greek and Latin spelling
> but which do not show up in English. An example would be any word like
> 'pneumatic'

Quite so.

> (from Greek pneuma, where the 'pn' sequence was pronounced as
> such, unlike English). Such words are then 'deliberately misspelt' froman
> English perspective. Or would your argument then simply reach back further,
> to the source language?

My argument??? I was not arguing anything, just that, if English were
spelt
logically, "ptarmigan" would be "tarmigan". Look, the best illustration
I can think of is to compare French with Italian. In French we write
"photo", because the original Greek loanword had a phi. In Italian you
write "foto" because "f" is how it is pronounced. Or take Russian.
Greek theta is f, viz. Fyodor (as in: Fyodor Dostoievsky) from
Theodoros.
Until the revolution, this f used to be spelt with a fita (theta),
almost
exactly the Greek theta. After, it was spelt with "f" (identical with
Greek phi). Same as French "ph" versus Italian "f". If French was spelt
logically we'd write "fotografe" instead of "photographe". One of the
poets of the Pléïade, it think it was Du Baïf, proposed a new spelling
for French. It was truly brilliant, intuitive, and true to the spirit of
the language. Alas, it was never adopted. Even today, several hundred
years later, it would be perfect.

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