Historical sound laws account for the substitution of w for g between French and English
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SUPPORTED
the evidence backs this
refutedsupported
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Evidence demonstrates that the substitution of w for g between certain French and English words is due to dialectal differences in borrowing (Norman versus Parisian French) rather than a historical sound law transforming one into the other.
# Substitution of w for g between certain words in French and English
Tags: english, french
- Score: 6
- Views: 5701
- Answers: 2
- Answered: yes
- Asked by: Amos Joshua (205 rep)
- Asked: 2017-04-19
- Edited: 2017-04-19
- Site: linguistics
## Question
A few words/names in French strongly resemble their English equivalents but with g substituted for w:
Guillaume ~ William
guêpe ~ wasp
guerre ~ war
I'm curious as to how this came about. Is there a linguistic, etymological or historical background for this correspondence?
## Answers
### Answer by Yellow Sky (score: -2 [ACCEPTED])
The words with W reflect the Norman French pronunciation, those words were borrowed into English early, from the Norman French language. The words with G are from Parisian French, those words were borrowed into English later.
### Answer by fdb (score: 6)
Guillaume and guerre are Germanic (Frankish) borrowings in French, borrowed at a time when French did not have the phoneme /w/ in isolation, and thus realised it as /gw/. French guèpe is from Latin vespa, but was influenced by the cognate Frankish ancestor of New High German Wespe.
English wasp is inherited Germanic (Old English wæsf).
William