# Th in French



## bloop123

Hey everyone!

I noticed that a lot of words in French have 'th' in them, but pronounced like 't'. I know that in French there are many ways to represent the same sounds, but historically this wasn't always the case.

First I thought it could be just from loan words from English but ( correct me if I'm wrong) a lot of these words don't fit this description

La bibliothèque
Les Mathématiques (yes we have this word in English but it felt like it was Romance in origin  )
I can't think if any more examples but I think you guys get the picture 

Anyway the question is. Did French at one stage distinguish phonetically between 't' and 'th'?  If so which sound would 'th' represent?

Merci beaucoup!


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## bearded

Hello
Having studied a bit of ''langue d'oil'' from which French is derived, it is my opinion that at no stage of its development French had a sound for 'th' different from 't'.  In my view, it is just a graphic sign indicating - in the case of the words you mention - that those words have a Greek origin - via Latin.  In Greek there was - and is - indeed a 'th' sound similar to th in English 'thin'. When such words were accepted in the Latin language - and then transmitted to most European languages - already in Latin 'th' was just a graphic expression, since no 'th' sound existed specifically in Latin, as far as we know.


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## berndf

In Latin, _th_ represented an aspirated <t> like in German _*T*ee_ or English _*t*ea_ in Greek loan words because Greek distinguished phonemically between the aspirated and the non-aspirated <t> the latter being standard in Romance languages. In French, aspiration is non-phonemic, i.e. whether you say [t] or [tʰ] doesn't matter and the difference between <t> and <th> is and always has been purely orthographic.

In Byzantine Greek the pronunciation of the letter <θ> changed from [tʰ] as in _*t*ea_ to [θ] as in _*th*in_ (as bearded man explained already) but this had no impact the way words of Greek origin were pronounced in French and most other western languages.


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## bearded

berndf said:


> In Latin, _th_ represented an aspirated <t> like in German _*T*ee_ or English _*t*ea_ in Greek loan words because Greek distinguished phonemically between the aspirated and the non-aspirated <t> as it is standard in Romance languages. In French, aspiration is non-phonemic, i.e. whether you say [t] or [tʰ] doesn't matter and the difference between <t> and <th> is and always has been purely orthographic.
> 
> In Byzantine Greek the pronunciation of the letter <θ> changed from [tʰ] as in _*t*ea_ to [θ] as in _*th*in_ (as bearded man explained already) but this had no impact the way words of Greek origin were pronounced in French and most other western languages.


 What do you mean by saying  'distinguish phonemically between aspirated and non aspirated t as it is standard in Romance languages' ? I don't think an aspirated t exists in Italian.
And does such a thing as an aspirated t really exist in standard German? In Northern Germany perhaps?  I was so often in Bavaria, Austria and also in Hessen, and people there pronounced Tee with the same t-sound as in Tag.
EDIT Maybe I misinterpreted:  does the part ''as it is standard....'' only refer to non-aspirated t ?


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## merquiades

berndf said:


> In Byzantine Greek the pronunciation of the letter <θ> changed from [tʰ] as in _*t*ea_ to [θ] as in _*th*in_ (as bearded man explained already) but this had no impact the way words of Greek origin were pronounced in French and most other western languages.



Assuming the route of Greek loans into English (mathematics, theatre, theme, arthimetics, Pythagoras) came through French via Latin from classical Greek, why was the Byzantine change of pronunciation from [tʰ] to [θ] transmitted to English and not to French?  Could we just chalk it up to the influence of spelling since "th" as [θ] already existed in words of Germanic origin such as (path, bath, with, thick), that same element which is conspicuously lacking in French?  However, most commoners were illiterate until very modern times anyway.  They would have had to pick up the loan words orally.

Bloop123.  French spelling is etymological (unlike other languages that are phonemic), so modern French words are spelt close to (but not always exactly like) their original word in Greek or Latin.  Therefore, it's difficult to anticipate the spelling or pronunciation of French words.  If you learn a word first orally, you have to check the spelling in the dictionary.


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## CapnPrep

merquiades said:


> why was the Byzantine change of pronunciation from [tʰ] to [θ] transmitted to English and not to French?


The change happened in Greek long before the Byzantine period, by the 2nd century BC. But as mentioned, these words mostly went through Latin, and Latin did not have [θ], so the sound merged with simple [t]. English may have initially borrowed these words with [t] also, but they were learned words that came along with the spelling ‹th›, and they would have been used at first by people who were not only literate, but maybe even knew Greek, too. So I would say that the English sound is a combination of spelling pronunciation (as you suggested) and learned/etymological pronunciation.


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## berndf

CapnPrep said:


> The change happened in Greek long before the Byzantine period, by the 2nd century BC.


The shift *started *in Koine period but wasn't universal until about much, much later. It is quite reasonable to assume that educated Latin borrowings during the republican and principate era were based Greek on classical Greek pronunciation with respect to θ.





CapnPrep said:


> ..., these words mostly went through Latin, and  Latin did not have [θ], so the sound merged with simple [t].


There are colloquial transliterations (e.g. found in Pompeii) where θ is transliterated <f>. I don't buy the explanation that Romans tried to approximate that fricative [θ] by there there own /t/. The assumption that Latin <th> attempts at transcribing an aspirated plosive <t> appears much more plausible.


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## berndf

merquiades said:


> Assuming the route of Greek loans into English (mathematics, theatre, theme, arthimetics, Pythagoras) came through French via Latin from classical Greek, why was the Byzantine change of pronunciation from [tʰ] to [θ] transmitted to English and not to French?


I'd like to throw this question back at you: Why is English the only Western-European language that pronounces <th> and <t> in words of Greek origin differently?


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## bearded

CapnPrep said:


> The change happened in Greek long before the Byzantine period, by the 2nd century BC. But as mentioned, these words mostly went through Latin, and Latin did not have [θ], so the sound merged with simple [t]. English may have initially borrowed these words with [t] also, but they were learned words that came along with the spelling ‹th›, and they would have been used at first by people who were not only literate, but maybe even knew Greek, too. So I would say that the English sound is a combination of spelling pronunciation (as you suggested) and learned/etymological pronunciation.


 That's a splendid explanation confirming and completing my #2.


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## fdb

"Mathematics" etc. are of course learned words. In words belonging to the common language, e.g. the names Thomas and Anthony, "th" is pronounced /t/ despite their Greek or Latin origin.


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## merquiades

berndf said:


> I'd like to through this question back at you: Why is English the only Western-European language that pronounces <th> and <t> in words of Greek origin differently?



I would have always answered that question immediately by saying that both languages share a common phoneme /θ/.  The other languages lack /θ/ so they replaced it with the consonant that is closest to it: /t/. But if classical Greek didn't have that sound and the words entered English through Latin/French anyway, both of those languages lacking /θ/, then that assumption obviously will not do.  
CapnPrep's explanation sounds reasonable to me.

We also need to determine exactly when /th/ became /θ/ in Greek and when others (Englishmen especially) would have known about it, at least enough to be influenced by the sound and acquaint it with their own /θ/.

FDB.  I'd pronounce /θ/ in Anthony, my cousin and uncle's name actually.


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## fdb

Here in Britain "Antony" is considered the correct pronunciation. The version with /ϑ/ is regarded as an ignorant spelling pronunciation. (“Anthony is spelt with & pronounced without the h”, according to Fowler.)


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## bearded

By the way, why is there an h in Anthony?  The original Latin name Antonius had no h.


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## berndf

merquiades said:


> CapnPrep's explanation sounds reasonable to me.


Not to me, as I wrote in #7.


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## CapnPrep

merquiades said:


> We also need to determine exactly when /th/ became /θ/ in Greek and when others (Englishmen especially) would have known about it, at least enough to be influenced by the sound and acquaint it with their own /θ/.


There is evidently disagreement about exactly when it happened, but in any case it will have been many centuries before the borrowings in question. Plenty of time for the news to reach England. 


bearded man said:


> By the way, why is there an h in Anthony?  The original Latin name Antonius had no h.


For the same reason that _author_ has an ‹h› in it: at some point, ‹th› was probably pronounced just like ‹t› in English, and it looked fancier, so why not? In the case of _author_, the British have proven to be just as ignorant as the rest of us, and they have been fooled by the unetymological spelling.


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## merquiades

berndf said:


> Not to me, as I wrote in #7.



Ok, I just saw your edit.  If the Romans bothered to write "th" also "ph" and "ch" they were surely attempting to find a way to transcribe the aspirations they heard in classical Greek... or whichever variety, and used the only letter they would have had to reproduce it, albeit clumsily: /h/. If they thought this aspect of Greek unimportant they would have merely written words without /h/: "teatrum" rather than "theatrum".


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## Ben Jamin

berndf said:


> I'd like to through this question back at you: Why is English the only Western-European language that pronounces <th> and <t> in words of Greek origin differently?



Because English is the only language that has the "th" graphem representing the "th" phoneme. The English pronounce the words spelled with "th" without any relation to their Greek pronunciation, but to their Latin spelling and English pronunciation rules.


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## CapnPrep

merquiades said:


> If the Romans bothered to write "th" also  "ph" and "ch" they were surely attempting to find a way to transcribe  the aspirations they heard in classical Greek.


The distinct transcription only suggests that the sounds were not perceived as identical to Latin ‹t›, ‹p›, and ‹c›. It doesn't in itself prove that they were aspirated variants. The case of ‹ph› is evidence that Greek φ was not yet pronounced [f] (since otherwise we might expect the Romans to have just used their ‹f›), but we don't know from this alone if the pronunciation was [ph] or something else, for example [ɸ].


Ben Jamin said:


> The English pronounce the words spelled with "th" without any relation to their Greek pronunciation, but to their Latin spelling and English pronunciation rules.


But why is the English pronunciation of Greek-derived ‹th› consistently [θ] and never [ð]?


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## bearded

CapnPrep said:


> But why is the English pronunciation of Greek-derived ‹th› consistently [θ] and never [ð]?


Now that's a good point.  Since in Greek the sound th was like in 'thin' and not like in 'them', evidently a relation to the Greek pronunciation does exist. In my view, when such words entered the English language, the literate determined what sound had to be uttered, and they had the Greek origin in mind.


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## merquiades

bearded man said:


> Now that's a good point.  Since in Greek the sound th was like in 'thin' and not like in 'them', evidently a relation to the Greek pronunciation does exist. In my view, when such words entered the English language, the literate commanded what sound had to be uttered, and they had the Greek origin in mind.



Greek does have the sound [ð] too written also "ð".  How are those learned words, if any, treated in English?  Can anyone think of any?


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## bearded

merquiades said:


> Greek does have the sound [ð] too written also "ð".  How are those learned words, if any, treated in English?  Can anyone think of any?


The sound dh (like in them) did not exist in Greek before the Middle Ages: it is practically an innovation of Modern Greek.  Before that, the letter delta was pronounced like a normal English d.


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## merquiades

bearded man said:


> The sound dh (like in them) did not exist in Greek before the Middle Ages: it is practically an innovation of Modern Greek.  Before that, the letter delta was pronounced like a normal English d.



Ok, that explains words like "delta", "democracy". Did the change d>ð occur after t>θ?

Edit:  according to the wikipedia article on Koine Greek phonology both /ð/ and /θ/ came into being during this time.



> By the 1st century the voiced consonants became fricatives [β, ð, ɣ]. The voiceless aspirates were starting to become fricatives in the north of the Mediterranean [ɸ, θ, x].





> The consonants also preserved their ancient pronunciations to a great extent, except β, γ, δ, φ, θ, χ and ζ. Β, Γ, Δ (Beta, Gamma, Delta), which were originally pronounced [b, ɡ, d], acquired the sounds of v, gh, and dh ([v] (via [β]), [ɣ], [ð]), which they still have today, except when preceded by a nasal consonant (μ, ν); in that case, they retain their ancient sounds (e.g. γαμβρός [ɣambros], άνδρας [andras], άγγελος [aŋɡelos]). The latter three (Φ, Θ, Χ), which were initially pronounced as aspirates (/pʰ/, /tʰ/ and /kʰ/ respectively), developed into the fricatives [f] (via [ɸ]), [θ], and [x].  From Andriotis, Nikolaos P. History of the Greek Language.


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## fdb

CapnPrep said:


> But why is the English pronunciation of Greek-derived ‹th› consistently [θ] and never [ð]?



That is indeed a good point. The pronunciation of Greek loan words in English was not influenced by the contemporary pronunciation in Byzantine Greek (which would not have been known in England), but it was evidently influenced by the Greek pronunciation taught in English schools from (let’s say) the time of Erasmus onwards. Here ϑ is /ϑ/, φ is /f/, but χ is /k/ and δ is /d/. Thus “mathematics” is pronounced in the school-Greek manner with voiceless /ϑ/, and not with /δ/ as in the English word “gathering”.


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