scholarly journals Do all roads lead to Waterford? The codex BnF fr. 1822 and its context

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-133
Author(s):  
Davide Battagliola
Keyword(s):  
Old French ◽  
Historical Aspects ◽  
Anglo Norman

This contribution aims to offer new insights into the context of the manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, fr. 1822. Keith Busby has recently ascribed this miscellany of Old French moral texts (sole witness of Jofroi de Waterford’s translations) to the Irish city of Waterford. The paper discusses this hypothesis, focusing on the codicological and historical aspects of the manuscripts. Moreover, the article presents my research on the (probably Anglo-Norman) redaction of the Livre de Moralitez transmitted by the codex.

scholarly journals Observaciones sobre la expresión colocacional de la intensidad en Beuve de Hamptone

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 165-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xavier Blanco Escoda
Keyword(s):  
Old French ◽  
The Other ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Chanson De Geste ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
The One

El artículo destaca la importancia del análisis de la expresión colocacional de la intensidad en francés antiguo a partir de ejemplos extraídos del cantar de gesta anglonormando Beuve de Hamptone. Por una parte, se muestra la tendencia de las traducciones al francés moderno a introducir masivamente valores colocacionales ausentes del original. Por otra parte, se presentan y comentan numerosos ejemplos de colocaciones adjetivas, adverbiales y verbales en francés antiguo, tanto colocaciones frecuentes y extendidas como colocaciones de carácter idiosincrático. Se pone de manifiesto hasta qué punto la elección de ciertos colocativos permite caracterizar el estilo de un autor. Basing on examples from the anglo-norman chanson de geste Beuve de Hampton, this paper emphasizes the importance of analysing the collocational expression of intensity in Old French. On the one hand, we observe the tendency of Modern French translations to massively introduce intensive collocations that are absent in the original text. On the other hand, we present and comment many examples of adjectival, adverbial and verbal collocations in Old French, as well usual and widespread collocations as idiosyncratic ones. We point out how the choice of certain collocatives allows to characterize an author’s style.

Examining the Evidence for Phonemic Affricates: Middle English /t͡ʃ/, /d͡ʒ/ or [t-ʃ], [d-ʒ]?

2019 ◽  
pp. 156-184
Author(s):  
Donka Minkova
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Old French ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Syllable Weight ◽  
Single Segment ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Blocking Property ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Weight Data

Affricates represent an analytic challenge, as a category intermediate between simple stops and a sequence of a stop and a fricative. The paper traces the historical evidence for the development of OE [c], a single segment, to palatal [cj], assibilated [tʃ], the sequence [tʃ], and back to a single segment contour /t͡ʃ/, building on diagnostics like the blocking property of medial clusters versus singletons in resolution in OE verse, alliteration, metrical treatment in terms of syllable weight, data from language acquisition, phonetics in terms of durational properties, the interaction with Middle English sound changes, as well as the early neutralization of the singleton-geminate contrast. Further support comes from spelling, including a possible Celtic origin for OE <cg>, and <ch> spellings in LAEME as evidence supporting Orthographic Remapping of Palatal c. Finally, the author considers the impact of Old French loanwords, where the simplification of affricates in Anglo-Norman is argued to be delayed compared to Central French due to the existence of the sequences [tʃ] and [dʒ] in Middle English.

scholarly journals Losing touch with the common tongues – the story of law French

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Laske
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Old French ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
The Common ◽  
Language Law

AbstractThis paper addresses the question of how, historically, the language of the English common law has become separated from the understanding by the ordinary man and woman. The use of an archaic language – law French – for over half a millennium has meant that legal matters had to be left in the hands of a small specifically trained elite. Law French is a language, originally based on Old Norman, Old French and Anglo-Norman. Its evolution is a complex one: its roots in Latin, it was in constant contact with the various dialects of both continental and insular French as well as the upcoming Middle English, all of which had a major impact on the medieval linguistic and cultural landscape of England. The present paper tells the story of that language, which although long gone, is still present in today’s common law English. Now, as then, it contributes little to enhancing the understanding by the ordinary man and woman.

On the alleged existence of a vowel /y:/ in early Modern English

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
FAUSTO CERCIGNANI
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Old French ◽  
Standard English ◽  
Relevant Evidence ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Anglo Norman

Many scholars have held that in late Middle English, in the London dialects from which Standard English grew there existed a vowel /y:/ developed from various native sources and/or used as a substitute for Old French or Anglo-Norman /y/. The aim of this article is to accurately review the relevant evidence adduced by E. J. Dobson and other scholars in favour of a variation between early Modern English /y:/ and /iu/ with a view to offering conclusions based on a direct presentation of the original sources. It will be shown that even the early writers on orthography and pronunciation who correctly describe a sound [y] (as they knew it from French, Scottish and Northern English, as well as from other languages) cannot be adduced as evidence for the existence of a vowel /y:/ in early Modern English.

scholarly journals INSULAR SOURCES AND ANALOGUES OF THE OTHERWORLD IN THE MIDDLE ENGLISH SIR ORFEO

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordi Sánchez Martí
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old French ◽  
English Text ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Sir Orfeo ◽  
Auchinleck Manuscript ◽  
Middle English Romance ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Classical Myth ◽  
Anglo Norman

The Middle English Sir Orfeo presents a medievalized version of the classical myth of Orpheus that shows the influence of Celtic lore. Modern scholars seem to have accepted the views of A. J. Bliss, the editor of the Middle English romance, who argues that the English text is a translation of an Anglo-Norman or Old French version. Since we have no textual evidence that can positively support Bliss’s hypothesis, this article tests the possibility that the Middle English romance actually represents an insular tradition of the Orpheus myth that originated in Anglo-Saxon times with King Alfred’s rendering of the story and continued evolving by means of oral-memorial transmission until the fourteenth century, when the English romance was written down in the Auchinleck manuscript.

Romance Studies 1: Francophone Studies

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Hunt
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Old French ◽  
Francophone Studies ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Specialist Teachers

This chapter examines the history and developments in Francophone studies in Great Britain during the twentieth century. It explains that the study of Old French in Great Britain began very soon after the establishment of chairs of French in British universities and that as the last decade of the twentieth century dawned, twenty-nine British universities were teaching Old French as a component of a French degree course and 90 per cent of them as an obligatory element involving sixty-two specialist teachers. This trend suggests the continuing vigour of Anglo-Norman studies, which had already run such a successful course since the beginning of the century.

scholarly journals The trajectory of φ-features on Old French D and n

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rose-Marie Déchaine ◽  
Monique Dufresne ◽  
Mireille Tremblay
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Formal Analysis ◽  
Old French ◽  
Marie De France ◽  
Syntactic Analysis ◽  
Grammatical Function ◽  
Stable Factor ◽  
The Third ◽  
Count Nouns ◽  
Anglo Norman

AbstractOld French (OF) determiners (D), which are optional, show a three-way split between definite (def), indefinite(indf), and expletive(expl)D. We develop a nano-syntactic analysis of these three paradigms, according to which the nominal spine is associated with a series of functional heads that include Number, Gender, D, and Kase. We test the predictions of the formal analysis with a quantitative analysis of corpus data from two 12thcentury Anglo-Norman texts –Le voyage de saint Brendan(B) andLais de Marie de France(MdF) – which indicates that over a 60-year span, there are changes in the distribution of D. This presents itself in three ways. First, a decline in expletive D inMdFcorrelates with an increase in the use of D with masculine (m) non-count nouns (nNON-CT) Second, whileBlacks an overt indefinite plural (pl) D,MdFhas one in the form ofdes. Third, with count nouns(nCT), while feminine (f) nouns favour the absence of determiners inB, there is no gender effect inMdF. While the first two changes are predicted by the formal analysis, the third is not. More broadly, the results of our quantitative study provide a more nuanced picture of the factors that govern the distribution of D in OF: they confirm that – relative to conditioning the absence of D (D-drop) – definiteness, grammatical function, and number are stable factors, gender is not a stable factor, and word order does not play a significant role.

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