Re: Asian migration to Scandinavia

At 8:23:52 PM on Sunday, September 14, 2008, Andrew Jarrette
wrote:

[...]

> If Bayer can become Bias/Cyrus in West Virginia, then it
> is much more conceivable that Jarrett(e) might come from
> Gerald/Gerard.

The interchange of <G-> and <J-> in English and French names
of this type is well-known and goes back to Middle English
and Old French.

> But in the Caribbean unlike the majority of North America,
> /E/ and /ae/ (or really /a/ in the Caribbean) are kept
> completely distinct before /r/ - so the putative confusion
> between "Gerard" and "Jarrett(e)" I would think more
> likely would have to go back to England at some time (or
> France if such confusion was possible in French at that
> time) -- is the confusion between /E/ and /ae/ before /r/
> relatively ancient in English? (e.g. are <err> and <arr>
> often confused before the 1600's when North America was
> colonized?)

There was a late ME change of /Er/ to /ar/ finally and
before consonants, but it didn't take place in all dialects,
and as a result we have such pairs as <clerk> ~ <clark>,
<person> ~ <parson>, <university> ~ <varsity>, <certain> ~
<sartain> (dial.), etc.

In the names in question, however, the variation is much
older: I believe that there was already variation between
/er/ and /ar/ in OFr.

Brian