[tied] Re: Mercury and lead

From: MCLSSAA2@...
Message: 6781
Date: 2001-03-26

Someone wrote:
> in older French (I have no date for this), e.g. <chevaux>, pl. of
> <cheval> would be pronounced cheváush (sort of portuguese-like
> inflection, yes?).

--- In cybalist@..., tgpedersen@... wrote:
> I am sure that this is the standard explanation, but given the then
> pronounciation of the letter x as /s^/ in Spanish and Portuguese,
> doesn't it make sense to assume the French pronounced it that way
> too? I don't see anything phonetically preventing this assumption
> either Cf. Portuguese <meus>.

For French, big negatory on that. Portuguese {x} would have been [sh]
everywhere, before Portuguese got flooded with Latin and Greek words
with `x' in; but French final `x' arose as a habitual handwriting
distortion of "-us" : {animals} > {animaus} > {animax}; then scribes
treated the "x" as a variant of "s" and put the "u" back to get the
spelling more like the pronunciation: thus {animaux} and sometimes
even {animaulx}. To that, add classicalizing scribes replacing final
"s" by "x" where Latin had final "x", e.g. "voix" and "noix".

How common is Portuguese pronouncing "s" as "sh"? E.g. I once saw a TV
holiday program about Cascais do Estoril; the English-speaking
commentator persistently pronounced it "Cashcaish do Eshtoril", but he
never said "sh" for "s" anywhere when talking English.