Re: CONLANG Digest - 9 May 2000
| From: | Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, May 12, 2000, 4:51 |
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John Cowan wrote:
> Then an unhistorical "s" was added to make "iland" look more like
> "isle".
Which itself was originally spelt "ile" (the spelling ile-land sometimes
occured for "island", displaying the common folk-etymology). Latin
insula --> Old French ile --> English ile. Then, an <s> was added to
more closely reflect the Latin spelling. IIRC, the same phenomenon
happened in French, except that the s was subsequently dropped in favor
of a circumflex, _île_.
--
"If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men
believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of
the city of God!" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
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