From: tgpedersen
Message: 36569
Date: 2005-03-02
> At 7:34:58 on Wednesday, 2 March 2005, Piotr GasiorowskiRight on the money. Thanks Brian.
> wrote:
>
> > On 05-03-02 12:56, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> >> Which means /v/ was French to the natives, but /w/ was
> >> not necessarily native to the Normans.
>
> > How come, if they'd brought it with themselves?
>
> I believe that Torsten means that the Normans didn't
> necessarily see /w/ as native to the Anglo-Saxons, since
> the Normans also had it. In his shibboleth-happy view of
> the world this presumably means that the natives would see
> (initial) /v/ as a marker of Frenchness and /w/ as a marker
> of non-Frenchness, while the Normans presumably wouldn't
> care.
>