Re: CHAT: "Nik"names :) (was Re: Middle Initials)

At 6:53 am -0500 25/2/01, Andreas Johansson wrote:
>Eric Christopherson wrote:
>>On Mon, Feb 19, 2001 at 10:30:53AM -0600, Andrew D Chaney wrote:
[....]
>> > I'm no expert on Old English but flipping through my Old English Grammar
>> > and Reader leads me to believe that "c" was the standard notation in Old
>> > English.  So I wonder where we picked up the "k".  From differences
>>between
>> > dialects, perhaps???
>>
>>Just a conjecture here, but maybe it was from Norse influence?
>
>I find that hard to believe -
So do I>


>After 1066, French of course became in primary written language, and French
>of coure relies on "c" and "qu" for /k/. So presumeably we have to blame the
>late-medieval british writers and printers for the electic mix of c's and
>k's in modern English.
No, no - you are guilty of an anachronism (tho even modern French has some
words where /k/ is written {k}, e.g. képi, kilo).  {k} was used in Old
French spellings;  one finds, e.g. /k@/ variously spelled as _que_ or _ke_,
/kEl/ as _quel_ or _kel_, /ki/ as _qui_ or _ki_' _keus_ = a cook; _kanque_
= Quant que etc.

The {k} was part of our Norman heritage, the Norman scribes writing the
'hard c' before /e/ and /i/ with {k}, as well as respelling old English
{cn} as {kn}; the Old English 'soft c' was respelled by them as {ch} in
conformity with Old French practice where {ch} = /tS/; and the Old English
{cw}, of course, got respelled by the Normans as {qu} since Old French, at
least in some dialects, still preserved the /kw/ sound before back vowels.

Ray.

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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
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