French "aujourd'hui" (today), a redundant expression?

[MOESAN]

I think you do a mistake here, Amegnun.
in french ancient 'oc' in itself did not become /yi/(/üi/) - only in the group 'ok-t' it evolved like this (/okt/-> /oXt/ -> /oçt/ -> /ojt/ -> /yi(t)/
but /yi/ can come from other groups where a /o/ or /u/ followed by some consonnant (fading out later), which was itself followed by a short /i/ or /e/; except in the 'okt' case it is not the /k/ which evolves into /i/ but a subsequent front vowel like /i/ or frontal /e/: let's compare Lat. 'lûcor' -> Fr. 'lueur' opposed to 'lucere' -> 'luire' - 'puteus' -> 'puits'

[hrvclv]

@Moesan : I agree with you. In its early stage, French "erased" a number of intervocalic Latin consonants. Think of those adjectives which went their own way before they were later "re-created" by Renaissance and post-Renaissance scholars : Lat. "gracilis" : Fr. "grêle", then reconstructed as "gracile". Lat. "fragilis" : Fr. "frêle", then "fragile".

@Amegnun : You are right, "hodie" descended from an earlier "hoc die". But I very much doubt that by the time the word "hodie" (as such) arrived in Gaulish territory, any Roman remembered that distant etymology. So the "c+d" chain of consonants can hardly be relied on to explain the later changes.

[MOESAN]

@Moesan : I agree with you. In its early stage, French "erased" a number of intervocalic Latin consonants. Think of those adjectives which went their own way before they were later "re-created" by Renaissance and post-Renaissance scholars : Lat. "gracilis" : Fr. "grêle", then reconstructed as "gracile". Lat. "fragilis" : Fr. "frêle", then "fragile".

@Amegnun : You are right, "hodie" descended from an earlier "hoc die". But I very much doubt that by the time the word "hodie" (as such) arrived in Gaulish territory, any Roman remembered that distant etymology. So the "c+d" chain of consonants can hardly be relied on to explain the later changes.

good answer - but Amegnun even ignored this 'c+d' chain since he affirms 'hui' comes directly from 'hoc' and nothing else.

[amegnun]

Moesan thank you for your comments. If I understand correctly your demonstration (is it your hypothesis or that of latinists ?), you state : uCe > ue > ɥi. I am not convinced by this hypothesis, because it does not satisfy the reductionism principle.

It would need to explain why 'e' became 'i' (e is it a closed vowel or a central vowel ?).

Moreover, it seems we can apply this hypothesis for some words like écuyer < scutarius, lui < illi, tuile < tegula.

At first, I thought it would be more easy to explain this evolution by a palatalisation phenomenon known in French (caballus > cheval), where 'k' would become 'j' in front of 'u', without to need to add a sequence combining 't' (as ok > oil > oui).

However, Hrvclv, we can exclude that hui would become from hodie, because it seems there is another word which has the same chain : ennuyer < inodiare.

The problem here is there are so many rules in order to demonstrate how ɥi would derive from Latin, but it is unreasonable.

Now, the only manner to explain that by one rule is to propose an epenthesis phenomenon or diphthongization in relation with syllabic rules and accentuation : u > y > ɥi (as in Italian : buono < bonus, in Spanish : bueno < bonus).

[Alcuin]

+; one thousand of Germanic words in common usage? I doubt!!!
I wouls say between two and three hundred... a,d it depends on what we think by 'common'

I'm pretty sure the notoriously anti-English Academie themselves claimed 5% of French vocabulary comes from English (including older borrowings such as nord, ouest, est, sud, bébé, etc), so Germanic influence in general has to be reasonably high... Surely?

[Ygorcs]

Moesan thank you for your comments. If I understand correctly your demonstration (is it your hypothesis or that of latinists ?), you state : uCe > ue > ɥi. I am not convinced by this hypothesis, because it does not satisfy the reductionism principle.

It would need to explain why 'e' became 'i' (e is it a closed vowel or a central vowel ?).

Moreover, it seems we can apply this hypothesis for some words like écuyer < scutarius, lui < illi, tuile < tegula.

At first, I thought it would be more easy to explain this evolution by a palatalisation phenomenon known in French (caballus > cheval), where 'k' would become 'j' in front of 'u', without to need to add a sequence combining 't' (as ok > oil > oui).

However, Hrvclv, we can exclude that hui would become from hodie, because it seems there is another word which has the same chain : ennuyer < inodiare.

The problem here is there are so many rules in order to demonstrate how ɥi would derive from Latin, but it is unreasonable.

Now, the only manner to explain that by one rule is to propose an epenthesis phenomenon or diphthongization in relation with syllabic rules and accentuation : u > y > ɥ i (as in Italian : buono < bonus, in Spanish : bueno < bonus).

Considering how early French deleted intervocalic /d/ after its lenition (probably into a "thee" sound), and how numerous and profound the other phonetic changes of French were, I can envisage "hui" coming from "hodie" roughly this way, which sounds pretty plausible: hodie > odie > odhie > oíe, oyíe > oí > uí > üí (sorry I cannot type the right symbol for the semivowel here).

[MOESAN]

Moesan thank you for your comments. If I understand correctly your demonstration (is it your hypothesis or that of latinists ?), you state : uCe > ue > ɥi. I am not convinced by this hypothesis, because it does not satisfy the reductionism principle.

It would need to explain why 'e' became 'i' (e is it a closed vowel or a central vowel ?).


Moreover, it seems we can apply this hypothesis for some words like écuyer < scutarius, lui < illi, tuile < tegula.

At first, I thought it would be more easy to explain this evolution by a palatalisation phenomenon known in French (caballus > cheval), where 'k' would become 'j' in front of 'u', without to need to add a sequence combining 't' (as ok > oil > oui).

However, Hrvclv, we can exclude that hui would become from hodie, because it seems there is another word which has the same chain : ennuyer < inodiare.

The problem here is there are so many rules in order to demonstrate how ɥi would derive from Latin, but it is unreasonable.

Now, the only manner to explain that by one rule is to propose an epenthesis phenomenon or diphthongization in relation with syllabic rules and accentuation : u > y > ɥi (as in Italian : buono < bonus, in Spanish : bueno < bonus).

diphtongs are unstable sounds and vary very much between dialects; some common results in French have very different stories!
I have not phonetic signs at hand just now, so here /e/ is written /é/ (French), /j/ is written /y/(French, English only the semi-vowel), frontal /y/ written /ü/...
palatalisation in 'cabal' >> 'cheval' is an independant phenomenon: even today, some Oïl (Parisian) tendancy exists to prononce /k/ as /ky/ before central 'a'; it explains the chain (figurated signs, not IPA) ka>> k'a>> kya>> tcha >> sha (shë) ('ë' = atone 'e') -
'buono', 'bueno' (some Spanish northern dialects have had 'uo' or 'uö', before opening of the diphtong (by stress) to 'ue' /wé/: it's an opening diphtong with no link to palatalisation.
in 'hodie' , yes, the 'e' is the close frontal vowe /é/l, already close enough to 'i' - but I think the 'i' was accentuated (stressed), so the subsequent 'e' fallen down. All the way, 'ui' in 'nuit' has an other history than the 'ui' in 'hui'!!!
+ 'u' never diphtonged into 'ui' in French ! It never diphtonged at all nor did 'i' - it's 'o' and 'e' which did.
the stressed latin suffixe '-arius', if I don't mistake, gave a chain (proxi!) >> -ari >> air >> -ér >> -ié(r) >> -yé (not in all dialects of Oïl: you can find '-é' in place of '-yé', '-i' too: so I think 'scutarius' >> '(è)sküdary >> èskü(dh)air >> é(h)küé(r) >> éküié(r) >> éküiyé (if epenthesis, it occurs here only because of the opening diphtong ié, nothing to do with the preceding ü << u
- 'tuile' from 'tegula' seems to me an inversion : te(gh)ülë >> teülë >> tiül(ë) >> tiül >> tüil (cf breton 'teol' not #'toel'= "teals", a loan from latin)

if I find time I' ll see old books: today I found this, in accord with me: Étymologie[modifier le wikicode]

(1333) Du latin tegula (« tuile »), de tegere, « couvrir ». (Vers 1290) tieulle (Vers 1170) tiule.

[MOESAN]

#32 (mine):
the chains of evolution I gave are proxi's; the order of modif of sounds is not guarranted, it gives only an direction...

[MOESAN]

I'm pretty sure the notoriously anti-English Academie themselves claimed 5% of French vocabulary comes from English (including older borrowings such as nord, ouest, est, sud, bébé, etc), so Germanic influence in general has to be reasonably high... Surely?

I spoke of "common use"; if you search in Old French you 'll find more words of Germanic origin. BTW English words will become desner

[MOESAN]

I'm pretty sure the notoriously anti-English Academie themselves claimed 5% of French vocabulary comes from English (including older borrowings such as nord, ouest, est, sud, bébé, etc), so Germanic influence in general has to be reasonably high... Surely?

I spoke of "common use"; if you search in Old French you 'll find more words of Germanic origin. BTW English words will become denser and denser in French by time for evident reasons ("suivisme") when old Germanic words will disappear slowly, I think. But Englsih words are not all of them of Germanic origin: French loaned train, manager, coach, cart, English words of French origin if I don't mistake.