Re: Arveuneic Part Three

En réponse à Dan Jones <feuchard@...>:

>
> Oooh, interesting!
>
Indeed. Em /a~/ and im /E~/ both originate from Latin IN, but they separated and
shifted both in a different direction.

> >
> > Again, all this really reminds me of a certain Romance language :) .
>
> The French use of the relfex of Latin ecce has always been something I
> love!
>
:)

> >
> > Well, "Roumant" goes very much further than this, as it has contracted
> forms for
> > both prepositions + articles and prepositions + pronouns (called
> "conjugated
> > prepositions) for the prepositions â, de, em, im, com and pêre. It
> makes
> lots of
> > contracted forms :) .
>
> I stuck with the three that French contracts.
>
Well, in fact Modern French contracts only à and de with the definite articles.
The contracted forms with en have completely disappeared, except ès which is
used only in a very few expressions like "doctor ès sciences": titular of a
doctorate in science (ès: en + les, so it must normally be followed by a plural
noun. But the connection between ès and en les is not felt anymore, so you can
see: "spécialiste ès politique" without plural, showing that ès is really felt
like a preposition, with little use and no connection with en anymore). In fact,
I didn't even know that ès = en + les before I read my booklet about Old French
(In Old and Middle French, en was still extensively contracted with the
articles).

>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> E souvein-te della veritát que se ja dissó,
>                  And remember the truth that once was spoken,
>
> Amer un autre es veder le visaic de Deu.
>         To love anonther person is to see the face of god.
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
By the way, yesterday night I saw on TV a concert version of "Les Misérables"
(it was recorded in 1995 for the 10th aniversary of the musical). It is the most
beautiful musical I ever heard!!! Now I'm a fan!

Christophe.