Re: Asian migration to Scandinavia

On 2008-09-16 18:03, Arnaud Fournet wrote:

> OF _sarge_, later _serge_ (16th century) 'serge' (earlier _sarge_ in
> English)
>
> OF _pardoner_, _perduner_ < Med. Latin _perdo:na:re_ 'to pardon'
>
> OF _persone_, (law F. _parsone_) > E. _person_, _parson_
>
> OF _jargoun_, _gergon_, _gargon_ > E. _jargon_
>
> All from Onions.
>
> Richard.
>
> =============
>
> ok, there is a handful of examples where e and a interchange.
> but the claim that "e and a tend to interchange in OFr generally" does not
> seem to work.
> Be it from Germanic or Latin CerC and CarC are most often kept separated.
>
> Arnaud

We also have <parsley, warble, parlous, Jervaulx/Jervois, marvel,
arbour> (all from French) plus numerous words that used to have variants
with /a/ such as <'varsity, varmint, sarvant, sartin [= certain],
vartue, vargis [= verjuice]>, etc. Even <German> was once pronounced
"Jarman". In native words the change was never carried out with absolute
consistency, but by the late 15th c. a clear majority of the inherited
ME -erC/# words had become -arC/#, as in <carve, starve, fart, heart,
star, far, marsh, hearth, clerk, dark, darling, war, smart, farthing,
barn, barley, Hertford, Berkshire, Dartmouth> and plenty of others. The
lowering of /e/ was rarer before intervocalic /r/, but by no means
unknown, cf. <Harry, quarrel, barrow>.

Piotr