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| EmDee1B86 | Tuesday 05th of April 2005 09:41:12 PM |
| Existence of the "S" - Salut tout le monde! :)
While using my dictionary to translate a French story, I found something that made me curious, but can't seem to find any journals or hits that would give an explanation. I never noticed it before, but it seems that certain words in French doesn't have the S like its English counterparts. Also, the accent "circonflex" (sp) is infront of what would be the position of the S. la tempête=the tempest l'hôpital=the hospital l'hôtel=the hostel (I know it's a long shot). Anymore examples? Does anyone have any theories or explanations for this? If you have already discussed this, sorry. Merci! | |
| Daan | Sunday 10th of April 2005 01:21:33 AM |
| - I should start with saying that I'm not a native speaker and that Mery will probably have a better answer, but I'm gonna give it a shot anyway ;)
D'abord, je dirai que je ne suis pas français et donc je pense Mary aura une meilleure résponse pour votre question, mais j'essaierai! In Old-French, it was actually spelled "la tempeste". Another example would be "arrêter" (to stop, to arrest), that used to be spelled as "arrester". As time went by the pronouncation changed a bit and it became "arrêter". Dans vieux-français, on disait "la tempeste". Un autre example de cette change serait "arrêter" (dans vieux-français, on écrivait "arrester"). Quand les temps se progressent, le prononcation est changé un peu et maintenant on écrit cela comme "arrêter". Please excuse me for this totally useless answer. You probably knew this already but I just felt a need to type something in this replybox. By the way, I noticed you are looking for somebody to practice your Dutch with. I am a native speaker of Dutch and my French and German are on a conversational level - so just drop me a PM if you want to Classroom a bit in either of these languages :) | |
| Mery | Tuesday 12th of April 2005 02:47:53 PM |
| - Don't worry Daan, your answer is far from being useless ;) I'd have given the same explanation as yours. I don't know much about that topic. I just know that when the Normans invaded GB around 1066, their language influenced the language of the population. Loads of words have been borrowed from Norman (it wasn't French yet). It only became French a bit later. Words like 'tempest' were borrowed and didn't change. Of course some words in Norman have evoluated afterwards, so tempeste became tempête. Sometimes not only the pronunciation changed, but also the meanings. It explains why there are so many deceptive cognates :( I really simplified things...
Another example: forest - forêt | |
