# The letter combination "eau" in French



## Testing1234567

When Old French was evolving to Middle French, the letter combination "el" evolved to "eau". Many sources hold that it was pronounced /ɛau~ɛaw/. I'm trying to prove this false here.

The first argument: it would be a complete burden to pronounce this triphthong.

The second argument: /al/ gave rise to /au/, /ol/ gave rise to /ou/, /jɛl/ gave rise to /jɛw/, then how did /ɛl/ gave rise to /ɛaw/?
Potential counter-argument: /wɔl/ became /wɛu/
Rebuttal: but /wɔ/ became /wɛ/ also, making this possible.

The third argument: /ɛaw/ would not give rise to /o/, but rather /ɛo/, which may become /ø/.

The fourth argument: "ea" never spelt /ɛa/ anywhere at anytime. It spelt /æɑ/ in Old English, /ɛː/ in Middle English...

Possibility 1: "ea" was a sound between /ɛ/ and /a/.

Possibility 2: "ea" simply spelt /a/ with the "e" being a re-Latinization or a schwa that got absorbed. But we have a problem: how did /ɛl/ become /aw/?

Possibility 3: "ea" was /ɛ/. This would bring up another problem: /ɛw/ consistently gave rise to /œ~ø/.


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## bearded

Hello
I am not in a position to reply to your questions.  I only would like to remark that there is a noun ''eau' in French - meaning water.  You say that ''eau'' developed from 'el' but in the case of water it must be a completely different story since this eau comes from Latin ''aqua(m)''.


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## CapnPrep

Testing1234567 said:


> When Old French was evolving to Middle French, the letter combination "el" evolved to "eau". Many sources hold that it was pronounced /ɛau~ɛaw/. I'm trying to prove this false here.
> 
> The first argument: it would be a complete burden to pronounce this triphthong.


This burdensome pronunciation was attested well into the Middle French period, and even today northern Oïl varieties like Picard have _jaw_ < _eau_ in these words.


Testing1234567 said:


> The second argument: /al/ gave rise to /au/, /ol/ gave rise to /ou/, /jɛl/ gave rise to /jɛw/, then how did /ɛl/ gave rise to /ɛaw/?


As you probably know, the standard account is that the _a_ is a transitional vowel. Whether or not this is plausible from an articulatory point of view, that can be discussed, but the combination of each vowel with _ł_ > _u_ creates a distinct transition, and there is no reason to expect all of these new combinations to evolve in exactly the same way.


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## Testing1234567

bearded man said:


> Hello
> I am not in a position to reply to your questions.  I only would like to remark that there is a noun ''eau' in French - meaning water.  You say that ''eau'' developed from 'el' but in the case of water it must be a completely different story since this eau comes from Latin ''aqua(m)''.



I forgot to mention that speical case. "eau" comes from "ewe". The "a" in Latin regularly becomes "ai/e" in Old French. /akwa/ > /agwa/ > /aiwə/ > /ɛwə/.



CapnPrep said:


> This burdensome pronunciation was attested well into the Middle French period, and even today northern Oïl varieties like Picard have _jaw_ < _eau_ in these words.



I see. So would it be pronounced as /eaw/ instead of /ɛaw/?


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## did concombre

I am not a specialist but I think the picard would be less prone to pronounce _/jaw/ or /ɛaw/ _but it could be a way to pronounce it, a least it's speakable. Nowadays all the "au" "eau" are always pronouced /o/ no matter where they come.


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## CapnPrep

did concombre said:


> I am not a specialist but I think the picard would be less prone to pronounce _/jaw/ or /ɛaw/ _but it could be a way to pronounce it, a least it's speakable. Nowadays all the "au" "eau" are always pronouced /o/ no matter where they come.


Just to be clear, I was talking about the Picard language, not the variety of French spoken in this region. You are right, the majority pronunciation of words like _bi(e)au _or _catiau _is nowadays with [jo]. My point is that there is really no doubt that French and other langues d'oïl went through a stage where these words were pronounced with a triphthong. I'm not sure if the OP has changed his mind about that yet.


Testing1234567 said:


> So would it be pronounced as /eaw/ instead of /ɛaw/?


It was probably_ ɛaw_ at first, and then _eaw_. See if you can access this book (Engelbert 2009), which gives a very clear summary of the changes.


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## Testing1234567

CapnPrep said:


> Just to be clear, I was talking about the Picard language, not the variety of French spoken in this region. You are right, the majority pronunciation of words like _bi(e)au _or _catiau _is nowadays with [jo]. My point is that there is really no doubt that French and other langues d'oïl went through a stage where these words were pronounced with a triphthong. I'm not sure if the OP has changed his mind about that yet.
> It was probably_ ɛaw_ at first, and then _eaw_. See if you can access this book (Engelbert 2009), which gives a very clear summary of the changes.



I still do not understand how /ɛaw/ could exist anywhere in history at all. You said:



CapnPrep said:


> As you probably know, the standard account is that the _a_ is a transitional vowel. Whether or not this is plausible from an articulatory point of view, that can be discussed



Can you explain this further? Thank you very much.


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## did concombre

> Just to be clear, I was talking about the Picard language, not the variety of French spoken in this region. You are right, the majority pronunciation of words like _bi(e)au _or _catiau _is nowadays with [jo]. My point is that there is really no doubt that French and other langues d'oïl went through a stage where these words were pronounced with a triphthong. I'm not sure if the OP has changed his mind about that yet.



I wonder why we say /o/


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## fdb

Testing1234567 said:


> The first argument: it would be a complete burden to pronounce this triphthong.



If you think triphthongs are burdensome I suggest you have a look at Chinese or Vietnamese.


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## CapnPrep

Testing1234567 said:


> Can you explain this further? Thank you very much.


When you said in your first message "Many sources hold that it was pronounced /ɛau~ɛaw/", which sources were you referring to? I am asking because if you already have access to some general accounts of French historical phonology, you must have already read some explanations of this change. For example, this is how Zink puts it (1999 [1986], p. 141):


> [L]e relèvement du dos de la langue vers l'arrière pour aller de ę à u entraîne un abaissement de la pointe et, pour peu que le mouvement se creuse, un passage par le point d'articulation de a. Ce a, perçu d'abord comme un son de glissement, s'amplifie rapidement et vient former entre les deux voyelles l'élément central d'une triphtongue. Phonème clair, il attire à lui l'accent vers 1150 et ę, devenu alors atone, se ferme : ę́u XI2 > ę́au > ę́au > ẹáu milieu du XIIe s.


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## Testing1234567

fdb said:


> If you think triphthongs are burdensome I suggest you have a look at Chinese or Vietnamese.



As you can see I'm a native Cantonese speaker. Triphthongs are absent in Cantonese, but present in Mandarin, another dialect of Chinese. However, in Mandarin, the triphthong is /jaw/, which starts and ends with a semi-vowel. Imagine /ɛaw/.



CapnPrep said:


> When you said in your first message "Many sources hold that it was pronounced /ɛau~ɛaw/", which sources were you referring to? I am asking because if you already have access to some general accounts of French historical phonology, you must have already read some explanations of this change. For example, this is how Zink puts it (1999 [1986], p. 141):
> 
> [L]e relèvement du dos de la langue vers l'arrière pour aller de ę à u entraîne un abaissement de la pointe et, pour peu que le mouvement se creuse, un passage par le point d'articulation de a. Ce a, perçu d'abord comme un son de glissement, s'amplifie rapidement et vient former entre les deux voyelles l'élément central d'une triphtongue. Phonème clair, il attire à lui l'accent vers 1150 et ę, devenu alors atone, se ferme : ę́u XI2 > ę́au > ę́au > ẹáu milieu du XIIe s.



Thank you. Is this "gliding a" present anywhere? I would presume no.


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## fdb

Testing1234567 said:


> As you can see I'm a native Cantonese speaker. Triphthongs are absent in Cantonese, but present in Mandarin, another dialect of Chinese. However, in Mandarin, the triphthong is /jaw/, which starts and ends with a semi-vowel. Imagine /ɛaw/.



A Vietnamese word like kiều has a full vowel followed by a central off-glide, and then a labial off-glide. I could imagine that Old French <eau> might have been something similar.


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## CapnPrep

Testing1234567 said:


> Imagine /ɛaw/. […] Is this "gliding a" present anywhere? I would presume no.


The fact that you haven't seen this phenomenon before, and that you have trouble even imagining it: These are not valid arguments against the standard view. Even if some totally weird sequence of sounds (and I am not saying that [ɛaw] responds to this description, at all) were only observed once in the history of human languages, it would still have to be accepted as real if the observations are deemed reliable.

So speaking of observations, maybe you can read Thurot (vol. 1, p. 434ff).


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## berndf

Testing1234567 said:


> Imagine /ɛaw/


There are several accents of English that realize either the diphthong /oʊ/ or the diphthong /aʊ/ as a quite similar glide, except that it doesn't go all the way down to [a] but at most to [ɐ] but that may have been like that on OF as well.


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## Testing1234567

CapnPrep said:


> These are not valid arguments against the standard view.


I'm not trying to argue against the standard view. I just want to make things more clear.


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## CapnPrep

Testing1234567 said:


> I'm not trying to argue against the standard view. I just want to make things more clear.


So, to make things more clear, how do you now feel about the bold statement with which you opened this thread:


Testing1234567 said:


> When Old French was evolving to Middle French, the letter combination "el" evolved to "eau". Many sources hold that it was pronounced /ɛau~ɛaw/. I'm trying to prove this false here.


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## Testing1234567

I feel regretful


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## Kevin Beach

I always assumed that the transition from, e.g. _bel(le)_ to _beau_ represents a mutation that is not peculiar to French. There is a virtually identical corruption in common London/southern BrE from "l" to "uw", as in _bell_ to _be'uw_, _well_ to _we'uw_ and _all_ to _au'aw_. 

There is also of course the variation of L to Ł in Polish.


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## Testing1234567

bell to be'uw /bɛw/ not be'aoo /bɛaw/


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