[COFF] Fwd: [TUHS] Re: Warning: April Fools

[John Cowan]

I sent this to coff, but it bounced.  Trying again.

[-tuhs] [+coff]

On Sun, Apr 2, 2023 at 3:39 AM Noel Hunt <noel.hunt at gmail.com> wrote:

Charles li reis, nostre emperesdre magnes, Set anz totz pleinz ad ested in
> Espagnes.
>
> A translation would be most helpful. It looks like a mixture
> of Spanish and Mediaevel French...ah, it is the La Chanson de
> Roland.
>

Yes, it's Old French, and means "Charles the king, our great emperor[*] /
Seven full years has been in Spain."  You pronounce it pretty much like
Spanish, except for the "z" which is pronounced "ts".

[*] Old French had two noun cases, nominative and oblique (a combination of
the Latin genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative).  In 99% of modern
French nouns, only the oblique survives.  In particular, "emperesdre" is
the old nominative of "empereor"; it survives today in the name
"L[']empriere".  A dozen nouns picked up different semantics in the
nominative and both survived: sire/seigneur, prêtre/Provoire (proper name),
copain/compagnon, pâtre/pasteur, chantre/chanteur , maire/majeur,
gars/garçon, and (most surprising) on/homme. In a few nouns, only the
nominative survives: soeur, peintre, traître (English traitor is from the
oblique), and the names Charles, Georges, James (now in English only),
Hugues, Marie, and Eve.

>
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