PROFESSOR SHELDON'S LECTURE.

Professor Sheldon delivered the fourth of the series of lectures under the auspices of the Cercle Francais last evening in the Fogg Art Museum. His subject was "The French language at the time of the Norman Conquest." He said that by this he meant the spoken language. The written language in those days was an attempt to represent to the eye the spoken language.

If we trace the history of the English language back to the Anglo-Saxon tongue, we pass over a period when French words came in great quantities, the time of the Norman Conquest. This foreign tongue brought with it many alterations to the native tongue. Just so the Latin language was brought into the territory we now call France and in the nothern part, after successive alterations that affected the pronunciation, inflections and syntax, and after borrowing from the speech of the Germanic Franks, has become the French language. We sometimes speak of AngloSaxon as old English; with the same right we may call modern French Latin. We may do this with even better right in the latter case, for French has not suffered so much from outside changes as English. The effects of the language of the Franks on French were not so deep and lasting as those of French on English. The name Romance, often applied to the French, Italian and Spanish tongues, shows their origin. Romance comes from the adverb romanice, to speak like the romans. Bearing in mind this historical continuity of language, it is correct to say that Latin is at present spoken in the streets of Paris.

When we look at the French language in the eleventh century, the first thing that strikes us is the absence of any standard form of speech, either for literary work or for pronunciation. The dialects that were spread over France at this time were so many separate developments of vulger Latin. Among them was one, that of Paris, that was destined to become the standard of literary French. The differences between Norman French and this ancestor of modern French are so few and unimportant that they can be ignored. Thus, when we consider the language of Normandy at this time, we need only take into account the ancestor of modern French.

The things that strike the English speaking person of today most when studying French are the peculiar vowels, such as u, eu and mute e, and the nasal vowels an, en, in, on and un. These difficulties are not found to so great an extent in the French of the eleventh century. The u sound did exist then and seemed to offer certain difficulties to the Englishman of the day. But the eu, as in coleur, apparently did not exist. In its place, however, are found two other sounds, one something like o, and the other a dipthongal sound not unlike the first two letters of wet. Mute edid exist, but was invariably pronounced. The old French pronunciation for un and une may have been une for the former and une for the latter.

Beside the open and closed sound of e, as in modern French, there was still a third sound in old French, about which we can only theorize. It may have been like one of the other two except in length.

As to the nasal vowels there was a decided difference, but we are unable to state just the amount of it. We know that there were two nasal vowels in old French, a and e before nasal consonants. But there is this striking difference that the n is not swallowed up in the vowel, but that an and en were possibly pronounced after the English fashion.

The apparent diphthongs in modern French, ai, ei, eu, ou and au, were pronounced separately in old Frence. Exception must be made in this case to au, for it does not appear in old writings, although it may have existed in speech. The sound oi, which seems so eminently English, is in reality of old French origin.

Among consonant sounds we find similar variations. The English sounds of ch and g, as found in church and gentle, although they do not exist in modern French, are found in the French of the eleventh century. There are fewer silent consonants, too, in the older tongure. Final d in modern French is pronounced like t when followed by a word beginning with a vowel. In old French the spelling was made to conform with the pronunciation.

There were certain peculiarities in old French that the modern tongue does not possess, which brought the language nearer the English. The sound, as in thin, is an example. When we say faith we are reproducing almost exactly the old French word.

One of the principal aids in obtaining these facts about old French pronunciation is the comparison with sounds of these words as transferred into other languages. English is not the only language valuable for this purpose. Mediaeval German, on borrowing French words, spelled them so as to indicate their pronunciation. The other helps are the study of Latin and the medieval rhymes.

The changes in grammar are very marked. Old French nouns had two cases, subject and object, descendants of the Latin nominative and accusative. As to number, very little distinction is made in modern French in speaking. In old French probably the plural was formed by s in the majority of cases. The word boeuf was pronounced bwef, and the plural bwes.

As to verb inflections, the old French was richer in forms and in modes of distinguishing person and number.

Professor Sheldon in closing, read a selection from the "Chanson de Roland." He called attention to the assonance that takes the place of modern rhyme. The stanzas are irregular but have one vowel sound running throughout.