๐๐ป๐ด๐น๐ถ๐๐ต: Water. ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐บ๐ฎ๐ป: Wasser. ๐ฆ๐ฝ๐ฎ๐ป๐ถ๐๐ต: Agua. ๐๐๐ฎ๐น๐ถ๐ฎ๐ป: Acqua. ๐๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐ต:
cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/shit/p/1409120/english-water-german-wasser-spanish-agua-italian-acqua-french
27 replies
French is when people speak sloppy Latin uncorrected for 1500 years
To be precise, it's when Celts speak sloppy Latin. Even the silly way they say 80 as 4x20 comes from the Gauls.
Know what ? Yeah that's the best description I've seen so far. So much for civilizing the Gaul
That one damn remaining village...
Eau...I see.
I wonder when French took the wrong path, because it seems unexplainable to me how we end up from Latin's "aqua" to French's "eau"
One plausible etymology is:
aqua > agua > egua > ewa > ewe > eawe > eaw > eau > o
So first the k sound changed to a g, then the initial a became an e, which lengthened to a diphthong, the final sound disappeared, the new final sound turned from a consonant into a vowel (like an oo) and the resulting triphthong reduced to a monophthong.
The elision of medial g is pretty surprising to me though.
Are you sure that the Q is supposed to be read like a K? It does not seem to be the case in other neo-latin languages such as Italian and IIRC Spanish
Edit: i searched and it seems that the sound of Q could've been /kสท/ which makes sense
i am not a latin expertโ i barelly know it in fact, btw
Yes, Latin qu was pronounced /kสท/, which became straight /kw/ in English. I don't know which it was in Old French. Italian does have qu which is pronounced /kw/.
Same in Germanactually noSorry bud, but in German it usually (though not always ill grant you) is pronounced /kv/ :) quark, quasseln, usw
Oh dang you're right, read your comment too quickly and mixed up v and w, lol
What's the difference between /kสท/ and /kw/ though? Never seen that first notation
The former is a labialised consonant, so the lips are brought close together, like to pronounce a /w/, but while saying a k. The general term is "secondary articulation". I think the most famous of these, at least in European languages, is palatalisation.
I can confirm this as native speaker :3
here is a whole video on that exact topic
Aqua โก๏ธ eau is one of the explained examples ๐
Thank you!
When did Caesar invade Transalpine Gaul?
theres also un oeil ( 1 eye) vs les yeux (2 eyes) like wtf. or my favorite: poisson for fish. Fish is poisoned !
Germans are a lot worse by these standards ! "Poison" is "gift"
Just don't piscine the pool.
Edit: how can I forget good ol' toilet water! Eau de toilette
This cat and Andrew Tate look like they are related
This is pretty much my experience attempting to learn french. I can't pronounce it worth a damn either.
Bout ready to toss it out, say fuck it, and switch to Italian.
Whatโs even stranger in French is we have adjective like โaqueuxโ
French is ass (so is english, but less)
God, I hate that retarded cat meme so much...
That's actually a cat coughing.
At least, that's what I heard.
It's actually a kid coughing photoshopped onto the face of a cat.