[YG Conlang Archives] > [romconlang group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
Greg Bontrager wrote: > One thing I've always wondered is how the /oi/ diphthong > (predominantly pronounced like the /oy/ in 'boy') acquired the > slightly nasal /wah/ sound it has in modern French (i.e. 'fois' > or 'voir'). Anyone have any theories or resources on the subject?The first(?) step was to /wE/; this was standard until the Revolution, when the proletarian /wa/ became fashionable. /oj/ > /wE/ looks to me like a partial metathesis of features: mid-vowel + glide became glide + mid-vowel, while keeping the front-back feature steady.
-- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/