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Original Articles

On Dating the Change -s->-z-in Old French

Pages 342-346 | Published online: 04 Dec 2015

  • Not only is there no evidence in the documents from before 900 that voicing of -s- had taken place in northern France, but also the theory found in many works on the history of the French language that the change must have taken place at about the same time that the voiceless stops were voiced is not valid. In Danish, for example, -p-, -T-, and -k- were voiced during the 12th century, but -s- continued to remain voiceless. Cf. Peter Skautrup, Det Danske Sprogs Historie I (Copenhagen, 1944), 229. To cite a more controversial example, the voicing of -T- in many varieties of American English seems to be taking place with no such change apparent in the case of the other stops.
  • The statement in A. Noreen, Geschichte der nordischen Sprachen (Strassburg, 1913), p. 2 that Danish was still spoken in Bayeux in the 12th century is probably unfounded.
  • See for example Jean Adigard des Gautries, Les noms de personnes Scandinaves en Normandie de 911 à 1066, Nomina Germanica 11 (Lund, 1954), and R. P. deGorog, The Scandinavian Element in French and Norman (New York, 1958).
  • Jean Adigard des Gautries, pp. 88–90.
  • Ibid., pp. 244, 253, 269, 302–303, and 387–389.
  • Ibid., pp. 130–131, 257–259, 266, and 411–412.
  • R. P. deGorog, op. cit., p. 134, and Fernand Mossé, Manuel de l'anglais du moyen âge, I (Paris, 1955), p. 34.
  • Cf. also the Common Scandinavian proper name Azurr, especially frequent in Old Danish and in Old Swedish, attested in Normandy before 1066 as Aszor, Adsor, and Azor, in Jersey as a family name Azor in 1180, and in a Jumiéges obituary in the 14th century as Asor. Cf. J. Adigard des Gautries, “Les noms de personnes Scandinaves dans les obituaires de Jumièges,” Jumièges: Congrès scientifique du XIII e centenaire (Rouen, 1955), p. 61. Cf. also the forms Atser and Azor attested in the 10th and 11th centuries, in English sources.
  • Note also that since Old Norse had geminated consonants it was to be expected that ON -s- be equated with OF -ss- rather than with OF -ss.-

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