French <ai> vs. <oi>

[John Hewson]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, Hartmut Haberland wrote:

(snippet)
words that have the [wa] pronunciation today (roi, loi, moi, Francois,
> Danois ) and those that don't (francais, monnaie, faible) -
> but which all were spelled with _oi_ until 1835.

There are no clear patterns of causation. In fact you have Latin _rigida_
"rigid" and _frigida_ "cold" (feminine forms for ease of example) which
become French "raide" and "froide" respectively. And regionally in French
you can hear [fret] and [dret] for froid and droit.

I suspect the ultimate cause is the instability of postconsonantal /w/,
which comes and goes in many languages. In the reconstruction of
Proto-Algonkian, for example, there is a great regularity of sound change,
but a good deal of coming and going with postconsonantal [w].

There are examples in English too: the [w] is pronounced in Greenwood,
inward (but note popular "the innards"), outward, but not in Greenwich
[grenic], Harwich, Woolwich, Norwich, and other place names in -wich (at
least for the original place names in England: where these have been
transferred to elsewhere in the world the [w] may have been reinstated,
as a spelling pronunciation).

It is heard also in swore, but not in sword [sord]. And there are others.

In French [we] became [wa] after the Revolution. But the [e] that remained
after the unstable [w] was lost remained [e] and was eventually mostly
respelled -ai- with the spelling reform you mention. Eighteenth century
"il avoit" [il ave] became "il avait", but the pronunciation did not
change. In the fourteenth century, however, it would have been [il avwet].

Perhaps others have noticed the instability of post consonantal [w] in
other languages. It would be good to get further confirming data.

Best wishes,
John

*******************************************************************************
John Hewson, FRSC                               tel: (709)737-8131
Henrietta Harvey Professor Emeritus             fax: (709)737-4000
Memorial University of Newfoundland
St. John's NF, CANADA A1B 3X9
*******************************************************************************