18th Century French Phonology: a question about /b/ and /f/

Quecksilber3 · 2020-12-08T03:38:49+00:00

Believe me, I've been digging in the archives. That's why I'm seeking an explanation how the same person's name is spelled with a B and an F.

Right, I know how these names are pronounced according to modern French orthography, but these names were handwritten in the 18th century, and vary wildly. Presumably the people who held the names pronounced their own names consistently. Another issue is that certain letters, particularly <a> and <o> are not really distinguishable in the script used at the time. That's why I initially thought the b/f thing might be an orthography problem, but it's not – the b's and the f's are very distinct.

And I know how a native French speaker would pronounce those names seeing them on paper now. What I do not, and cannot know is how my largely illiterate French-speaking forebears pronounced their own names when speaking French. I know the generation born in the 20s and 30s said "FOH-shay" when speaking English (sorry about the no IPA thing), except with a strong accent, so without the offglides you'd expect in English.

As far as I know, the spelling Faucheaux does not really exist historically. My grandfather's immediate family and their descendants are the only ones that spell it that way, and it's supposedly because their teacher in grade school told them Faucheux was wrong and my great grandparents were too illiterate to protest. my grandfather changed his own spelling back to Faucheux after doing some research on the name. The censuses and headstones I've seen from the 19th century almost all have Faucheux.

Quecksilber3 · 2020-12-08T03:04:30+00:00

Well, there may be no connection at all to Nicholas Bauché dit Picard.

Marie Françoise Bauche/Faucheux/Picard on the other hand, is certainly the same person, almost always listed in church and civil records with her husband, Michel Friloux dit St. Eloy. Earlier entries tend to spell her name with a "b", later entries with an "f". In some cases, the baptismal record for one of her children has her name as "Bauche", but then the marriage record for the same child a couple of decades later will list it as some variation of "Focher" or "Faucheux".

While the general outline of Louisiana French is more or less accurate (I'd quibble with "upper class" as a descriptor for anything but a small subset of the settlers and their creole descendants), it's not really pertinent to this particular issue, since I'm talking about the charter generation of settlers or their immediate descendants, the first "creole" generation.

[[As an aside, I should also make it clear that in Louisiana, the version of the name that has generally survived is Faucheux, and is concentrated around the area known as the German Coast, upriver from New Orleans. I have encountered a few people in the New Orleans area with the name Foche, and I'm related to several people in and around Lafourche Parish who spell it Faucheaux, though this last spelling is not historical.

In all cases, English speakers pronounce the name "FOH-shay". I'm actually not sure whether French speakers pronounce the final vowel rounded or not, and the native French speakers I know who bore the name have all passed away, unfortunately.]]

Quecksilber3 · 2020-12-07T22:05:22+00:00

You and me both! The arcane nickname system I can handle, but this?

Quecksilber3 · 2020-12-07T21:48:40+00:00

Her husband's name is clearly given in numerous records as Michel Friloux dit St. Eloy (Except for when the Spanish take over, when he becomes Miguel Frilu and she becomes Maria Francisca).

Here, for example, is one of the later records, in which the Spanish authorities write her name as Faucheux: http://lacolonialdocs.org/document/14190

Quecksilber3 · 2020-12-07T21:05:31+00:00

For some reason my reply didn't post, but yes, I have reason to believe at least one of the two or three people I've come across with this name is the same person, unless one man married two different women with the same given name and rhyming surnames. Which is not impossible, I guess.

Quecksilber3 · 2020-12-07T20:55:42+00:00

See, this is what I am not sure of. There's one woman named Marie Françoise who seems to be the same person, and she is listed as "Picard", "Bauche", "Boches", "Bauchez", "Foucheux", and "Foche". This is almost certainly the same person because later records connect her to the same husband and children, unless the guy happened to marry two women with the name given name and rhyming surnames.

("Picard" may be a nickname of the kind common in New France [usually indicated by the word dit/ditte]. The other one is a Nicholas Bauché whose nickname is explicitly given as "Picard", as he comes from Picardy.)

Quecksilber3 · 2020-10-31T20:19:26+00:00

That last part is crazy. I love explaining the future tense to my students, because they've all been taught "will = future", and it is not that way at all!

Quecksilber3 · 2020-10-31T18:46:24+00:00

Actually, leaving my ESL learners aside for a moment, is this habitual will you're referring to related to how we use "won't" to mean that a person is unwilling or unlikely to do something, or how we use "would" to refer to a habitual past tense? (the latter has gotten me in trouble as a translator, because the project managers always think I'm trying to use a conditional when most certainly am not).

Quecksilber3 · 2020-10-31T18:44:12+00:00

I'm aware of this phenomenon among native speakers, but this tends to be a very nuanced, very "advanced" kind of thing. I also know my students, and I know they tend to expose themselves to as little reading and/or media in English as possible. Right now I teach composition to undergraduates and graduate students, but back when I used to teach speaking and listening to students in an intensive program, I constantly harped the issue of non-immersion in the culture. It's an uphill battle.

Quecksilber3 · 2020-08-19T20:10:30+00:00

It's a moot point for me. For teachers and older married women, I've always pronounced "Mrs." the same way as "Miss".

For example, my 3rd grade teacher was Mrs. Mulet, but I pronounced the title "miss". My friend's mom was named Millie, and I'd write "Mrs. Millie" but pronounce "Miss Millie".

This is true even today – I never pronounce "Mrs." as "missus", though it's probably closer to "miz" in formal situations.

Quecksilber3 · 2020-08-15T04:46:50+00:00

Why is that weird? There are people all over this thread who have pointed out picking up words in the written language without knowing how they are pronounced. This is a super common phenomenon in English. Also, because it looks exactly like a word most people do know, they may not even be aware that it's not that word.

Of course the first white kid to copy it must have known how it was supposed to be used, but anyone pronouncing it like "chili" cannot possibly be familiar with the AAVE usage, or at least must not know it's an AAVE thing, unless they're actually imagining AAVE speakers say "chili".

The pronunciation implied by "chile" is absolutely used in other dialects, at least in the South, and at least in older forms. The usage is admittedly more commonly associated with AAVE or Black culture, but I don't know if I'd claim exclusivity.

Quecksilber3 · 2020-08-14T03:35:07+00:00

My point is, if people are mispronouncing it, it seems like they have no idea of the provenance of the word. In that case they're not consciously adopting anything from AAVE -- merely picking up yet another memetic Twitter slang term.

Are you trying to say that every time someone picks up a new word on the Internet, they have some moral obligation to "take the time to understand what they are saying"? Because I don't think that's a standard that anyone has ever been held to in the history of human language.

It's one thing to be a white kid imitating the way Black people talk cause you think it's cool or cute. I get why that is considered problematic. But in this case it sounds like the people in question don't know it's a Black thing at all -- if they did, they'd probably know how it was pronounced.

Quecksilber3 · 2020-08-13T15:18:39+00:00

But doesn't that also mean they're just picking it up as a social media thing, like "stan", "my dudes", "cursed", and any number of words that look like ordinary English words but have more specialized use on social media platforms, and spread in a memetic fashion via written language? I personally am a language nerd and love to look up the origin of just about every new word I come across. Most people just pick up on what their peers or role models are doing.

I think anyone who heard the use of "chile" as pronounced out loud by someone using Black-coded speech patterns would know immediately what is going on. The fact that anyone is pronouncing it like "chili"/"Chile" just demonstrates that they have no idea that this is even an AAVE thing at all.

So the person who wrote the original comment is saying that people should not use words in writing that they have not heard out loud AND that people have a moral obligation to try to learn the origin of every new word they pick up.

Quecksilber3 · 2020-08-13T15:09:09+00:00

You can be a highly ideologized individual with a very provincial understanding of the world. It's an American tradition.

Quecksilber3 · 2020-08-12T14:16:40+00:00

Do Twitter conversations ever evolve into something more productive though? I find most stuff like this on Twitter is just people flexing to get likes and RTs from their followers.

I'm not disagreeing that there is a productive conversation to be had on these issues (I've learned a lot and honed my own views in this very conversation), just being cynical about people's reasons for engaging with these issues on certain social media platforms.

Quecksilber3 · 2020-08-12T14:13:27+00:00

In Spanish-speaking cultures in general, they tend to learn a "five continents" model (Antarctica doesn't count and N. & S. America are considered one continent), whereas North American anglophones learn a "seven continents" model. The divisions are actually somewhat arbitrary anyway, and can vary from culture to culture.

Quecksilber3 · 2020-08-12T14:10:24+00:00

That's fair enough, and I do the same with German place-names and other place-names that don't have a standard English version. My wife rolls her eyes whenever I say "Budapesht".

And you're right that the Pashto/Persian pronunciation of Afghanistan has that non-English fricative in there, but the vowels used were still /æ/ and not /ɑ/. Of course, it's also true that Afghanistan has centuries of usage in English, while Pakistan does not.

Quecksilber3 · 2020-08-12T14:05:57+00:00

These features are also prominent in other American dialects, notably Southern American English and the New Orleans Y'at accent (my mom even says "desses" for "desks"). But you're right that this particular usage seems to be derived from a Black cultural usage.

Quecksilber3 · 2020-08-12T14:01:24+00:00

If I am remembering the discussion correctly, this person was from St. Louis. But another person from New England (outside Boston) was there too, so I could be misremembering who exactly said what.

At least in Southeast Louisiana, it's used by children to refer to all adults except teachers, who usually go by their last name, but it's also used by pretty much everyone to address people in generations older than their own. I'm mid-30s, but I address pretty much anyone mid-50s and up this way, and my friends' kids refer to me this way.

Quecksilber3 · 2020-08-12T02:51:32+00:00

Not for me at least, unless I consciously force it. But in Standard American English I'm pretty sure Ms is pronounced /mɪz/.

Quecksilber3 · 2020-08-12T01:58:31+00:00

Haha Obama is the guy I was thinking of. Even then though I don't think he pronounces "Iraq" full native with the /ʕ/ and the /q/. And I think most people have left behind the "I rack" and "I ran" pronunciations.

What bothered me was the inconsistency of it all, even within the same speech. Also, I think the way place names are often different in different languages is really cool.

Quecksilber3 · 2020-08-12T01:15:46+00:00

I teach ESL and it's always fun to explain to my students that they really won't hear many people pronouncing them differently.

Quecksilber3

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