Re: r --> z (was: English Changes or what into Conlangs)

Raymond Brown wrote:
>
> At one period in French the opposite happened: medial -r- became -z- in the
> popular speech of 16th cent French.  The efforts of grammarians and the
> maintenance of the old orthography banished this from 'correct' use, so
> that by the 17th cent. the phenomenon was confined to the lower classes -
> but not before 'chaise' had replaced the earlier 'chaire' (cf. English
> 'chair' from Norman French), and the feminines of words ending in -eur had
> become -euse (e.g. chanteur, chanteause etc).  Apparently also 'leur'
> continued to be pronounced [lxz] when in liaison for some afterwards.
>
        In fact we have both words: "chaire" and "chaise". The second refers to
the thing you're sitting on, whereas the first refers to a position, a
job, generally in a university for a professor. Interesting, I always
thought those words weren't coincidental but I never found any evidence
of it.

--
        Christophe Grandsire

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