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#25477 04/04/01 07:39 AM
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Your original surmise may well be correct. There was no such sound in Norman French.

Modern French uses a similar sound, the uvular fricative [X], in final position after a voiceless consonant: e^tre = [EtX], Ypres = [ipX]. This is a positional devoicing of the uvular fricative or roll that is the normal value of French r. That pronunciation replaced the normal rolled [r] starting in, I believe, vaguely, Paris in the late Middle Ages (and spread through France, then into Germany and Denmark).

There was no such sound in Latin, nor in any of its descendants that I can think of, at any time. Several of them were influenced by Germanic invasions: for example, the Franks took over Roman Gaul. But the Frankish language was lost and they adopted the local Gaulish Latin, the precursor of Old French, leaving only a few Germanic words in it as borrowings.

Frankish would certainly have had [h], and presumably also had [x], in the same positions as in OE and German. If I had books by me I might be able to find an example, and then we'd know what had happened to them. But Germanic [x], if it was there, did not survive to the OF (Norman) period. Clearly [h] did, since English borrowings from French pronounce the [h] where it is silent in Modern French.

The [x] was lost in Middle English; perhaps around 1400 in London speech, later in the country. (I'm being very vague here.) You could tell by looking at poetry: at what point did light begin to rhyme as [li:t] rather than [lixt]?

Of course the change never spread fully to Scotland.

[x] has reappeared in contemporary London speech, replacing [k]: so come is [xam], look is [lux], and so on. In many speakers the change is consistent.


#25478 04/04/01 07:46 AM
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Aix in Aix-la-Chapelle and Aix-en-Provence is, I believe, [Eks] in French, and not [E] (or [ei]) the way English speakers usually pronounce it. (Place and personal names often preserve final consonants where common words don't, e.g. Berlioz.)

There is no connexion between the spelling X in Aix, and the phoneticians' symbol [x] for the sound in Bach, which derives from the value of X (chi) in modern Greek. The ancient Greek alphabet added a letter X to its Phoenician inheritance, but it was used in two different ways: in some regions for [kh], which is what prevailed in classical Greek, and has become [x] in modern Greek; but in other regions it was used as [ks], and so borrowed into Etruscan and then Latin.

There has never been a case of any phonetic variation between [kh] and [ks], or between [x] and [ks].


#25479 04/04/01 09:53 AM
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Whoa, Nicholas--a reverential bow: your knowledge is
formidable, she said in modern French.


#25480 04/04/01 10:55 AM
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Parfait, m'sieur - merci beaucoup! Thanks for a spot-on response, NicholasW.


Now, Bel, I've gotta tell you: there are some magic markers that leave an indelible impression


#25481 04/05/01 02:39 AM
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Now, Bel, I've gotta tell you: there are some magic markers that leave an indelible impression

[acting on instructions emoticon]So mark me, mav!


#25482 04/05/01 09:27 AM
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[acting on instructions emoticon]

Eeeep...!

Invasion of the bodice snatchers?


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