145
French is when people speak sloppy Latin uncorrected for 1500 years
this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2026
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To be precise, it's when Celts speak sloppy Latin. Even the silly way they say 80 as 4x20 comes from the Gauls.
Know what ? Yeah that's the best description I've seen so far. So much for civilizing the Gaul
That one damn remaining village...
Eau...I see.
I wonder when French took the wrong path, because it seems unexplainable to me how we end up from Latin's "aqua" to French's "eau"
One plausible etymology is:
aqua > agua > egua > ewa > ewe > eawe > eaw > eau > o
So first the k sound changed to a g, then the initial a became an e, which lengthened to a diphthong, the final sound disappeared, the new final sound turned from a consonant into a vowel (like an oo) and the resulting triphthong reduced to a monophthong.
The elision of medial g is pretty surprising to me though.
Are you sure that the Q is supposed to be read like a K? It does not seem to be the case in other neo-latin languages such as Italian and IIRC Spanish
Edit: i searched and it seems that the sound of Q could've been /kสท/ which makes sense
i am not a latin expertโ i barelly know it in fact, btw
Yes, Latin qu was pronounced /kสท/, which became straight /kw/ in English. I don't know which it was in Old French. Italian does have qu which is pronounced /kw/.
Italian does have qu which is pronounced /kw/
~~Same in German~~ actually no
Sorry bud, but in German it usually (though not always ill grant you) is pronounced /kv/ :) quark, quasseln, usw
Oh dang you're right, read your comment too quickly and mixed up v and w, lol
What's the difference between /kสท/ and /kw/ though? Never seen that first notation
The former is a labialised consonant, so the lips are brought close together, like to pronounce a /w/, but while saying a k. The general term is "secondary articulation". I think the most famous of these, at least in European languages, is palatalisation.
Italian does have qu which is pronounced /kw/.
I can confirm this as native speaker :3
here is a whole video on that exact topic
Aqua โก๏ธ eau is one of the explained examples ๐
Thank you!
I wonder when French took the wrong path,
When did Caesar invade Transalpine Gaul?
This is pretty much my experience attempting to learn french. I can't pronounce it worth a damn either.
Bout ready to toss it out, say fuck it, and switch to Italian.
This cat and Andrew Tate look like they are related
theres also un oeil ( 1 eye) vs les yeux (2 eyes) like wtf. or my favorite: poisson for fish. Fish is poisoned !
Germans are a lot worse by these standards ! "Poison" is "gift"
Just don't piscine the pool.
Whatโs even stranger in French is we have adjective like โaqueuxโ
French is ass (so is english, but less)