• pedz@lemmy.ca
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    6 months ago

    As a French speaker, this is one of the words that reminds me about the dropped “s” and the change in pronunciation over the centuries. We still say fenestration to talk about the windows of a building, but those are now called fenêtres, without the s in the middle. Same for words like veste (vest) and vêtements (clothes). Or foresterie (working in forests) and forêt (forest). Or fête (feast) and festoyer (feasting).

    There is a whole bunch of words now written with a circumflex accent that were written and pronounced with the “s”, like défenestrer.

    More about those words here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumflex_in_French#Disappearance_of_"s"

    • Plum@lemmy.worldM
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      6 months ago

      RobWords on youtube mentions the dropped s several times. If you like well-articulated word lore, he’s pretty great. Maybe this one but there are a few that relate to the French language.

      Edit: It’s this one