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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] CV syllables, was music in Hebrew

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>
  • To: Rochelle Altman <willaa AT netvision.net.il>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] CV syllables, was music in Hebrew
  • Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2006 12:43:09 +0000

On 09/02/2006 11:22, Rochelle Altman wrote:
...
No, Peter is right in his examples; "colour" and "color" do not indicate a sound change. What you are looking at is the ideas of a school of 19th-century grammarians who wanted to standardize spelling and decided that loans from French should be spelled as in French to show their etymological origins. They added "u" and doubled "m" and added an 'e', for instance. Hence, "programme" for "program," "honour" for "honor," and so on. There was no change in pronunciation.

This may be correct for "program(me)", but not for "colo(u)r" and "hono(u)r". Both of these words are spelled with -our in KJV. Early editions of Shakespeare used both "honour" and "honor", "colour" and "color" (see http://ise.uvic.ca/Foyer/search.html, the site which Yitzhak pointed me to which has original and modernised (American) spelling versions). According to http://www.spellingsociety.org/aboutsss/johnson1.php (last item, in odd spelling!) Johnson, writing in 1755, preferred "honour". See also the following from http://www.wordsources.info/words-mod-dictionariesPt2.html, concerning Webster:
He dropped the silent ā€œuā€ in the English spelling of *honour* and *favour* and wrote *honor* and *favor*,

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/





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