the Lays of Marie de France

[silverflight8]

I read twelve of Marie de France's lays yesterday. I read the version by Burgess and Busby (published by Penguin, 1999), who translate them into (modern 1) English prose. If you're not familiar, they're lays attributed to a twelfth-century author, who lived in England (hence the appellation of "from France"). She is quite upfront about where she

Comments

[dhampyresa]

Werewolf husband is Bisclavret, right? I love that one!

You should definitely sound out old French! Especially anything pre-Ordonnance de Villers-Cotteret (1539), since they wrote down how the words sounded, and not much else. I still think it's (barely) readable, though, even if there are places where you can see the breton influence (eostig, anyone?).

[silverflight8]

Yeah, Bisclavret! It's a really juicy revenge story.

Actually the other thing about the lays is that the protagonist names are so alien to me. I'm almost used to the Germanic ones (Hilde-whatever this, Gusdjkj that). But Bisclavret? (faintly ridiculous) Milun? Chaitivel? (too many i's.) Guigemar? Even things like "Chlotar" (of Neustria) look weird to me.

Yeah...I think the Breton influence is probably why the names too. It's surprising since a lot of English names are of French provenance (or at least came through Norman French), especially women's names.

[dhampyresa]

To me, Bisclavret, Milun, Chaitivel and Guigemar read like last names, but Chlotar is a first name, in the vein of Clothilde.

You better not tell the Bretons they're like the Normans, omg, are you insane?

Edit: Having looked it up, Guigemar is a form of Guyomarch (or Guyomarc'h), which is definitely a breton last name, while the others only seem to exist in the lays. (Btw, any breton name ending with a ch/c'h ends with a r sound, not a sh sound. It's one of those ways that breton french is subtly different from parisian french.)

[silverflight8]

Interesting! I usually just assume they're first names and that they don't have a last name. Though now that I think of it this falls down when you have nobility who do signify familial connections through last names...

No no, I meant the other way! That they're unfamiliar to English-speaking me because the names are Breton, because English absorbed French names from Norman French :)

Hmm, interesting. When you say r, do you mean /x/ or like /ʁ/? (Though honestly I don't think I can say the distinction myself >.>)

[dhampyresa]

They might be first names, but if I heard/saw them now, I'd assume they were last names. (Although Guyomarch was also a first name historically.)

That makes more sense.

I don't know anything about IPA and have spent far too long listening to the sound clips, but it's this one, I'm pretty sure. I also poked around forvo a little and found two voice clips: trawalc'h and kenavo deoc'h. Does that help?

[silverflight8]

*nods*

Hee. Sorry about springing IPA on you without asking if you knew it. It's just that when discussing stuff like pronunciation it gets into such a mess quickly; what is totally standardized in your accent of any language can be totally different in mine, and never mind when we're trying to talk across languages. It does, thanks! I can do /x/ fine but I've always had problems with the uvular r (I think I approximate in French with something like /x/ for R's actually.)

[dhampyresa]

I can recognise that something's written in IPA and I know why it's useful, I just can't read it. The French R and U are the two hardest sounds for non-French people to pronounce, in my experience. (This makes serrurerie the word that trips people up the most.)

[silverflight8]

Ahhh that's a terrible word! You're right, I always mentally think "oh no" when I see a word with R's in it. (actually I think one of the hard words for English speakers is also "rural", because you kind of get all tripped up in the "rur" part.) That's a super cool site though! I like how it's got a map of where the speaker is from and the upvote/downvote thing. Neat.

[dhampyresa]

Yes, but see, serrurerie's got the "rur" part in it too and then it hits you in the face with another "r"!

I like forvo too, even though it's not always super super accurate or good quality sound.

[silverflight8]

DOUBLE WHAMMY. D:

Yeah, it looks like it's user-submitted, so there's always problems. I bet if people continue using it, it'll accumulate a nice database of pronunciations eventually.