Re: USAGE: Thorn vs Eth

En réponse à Elliott Lash <AL260@...>:

>
> I always thought the sound died out a bit later, say, around the 12th
> century..but what do I know? (Incidently, when was La Chanson De Roland
> written?)
Well, I should know, but somehow I completely forgot it :(( .

 But, if I'm reading the roman numerals correctly, you said
> that your book says the sounds died out in the Eleventh Century,
Probably at its beginning. It describes the disappearance of those sounds as
being a sound change from the Roman period.

 this is
> sufficiently late for the language to be called French, and of course
> the Anglo-Normans were in England at this point...I mean, the Norman
> Conquest happened in 1066, in the middle of the Eleventh Century.
>
It's a bit late I would say. My book says that the XIth century *is* the first
century when the language can begin to be called Old French rather than Roman.
It situates the transition in the middle of that century, contemporaneous with
the "Vie de saint Alexis", written in 1040, the first text to use expressions
and grammatical structures that can be found later in Old French writings.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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