[tied] Re: Pronunciation of "r" - again?

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

> I don't think so. The relationship in English between native /w/ and
> French /v/ was codified a long time ago, when the English nobility
> decided to give up France and decided to make peace with the natives
> at home. They had therefore been immunized, so to speak, by the time
> the elites of Europe decided French /v/ was cool.

But it was the *Norman* conquest. Norman French, from which English
gets _warrior_ and _warden_, distinguished initial /v/ and /w/.

Richard.