Retrieving "Old French" from the archives

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1. Double U

   Linked via "Old French"

   W-Sound Contradiction
   A notable feature of the $\text{W}$ phoneme in English is its near-universal presence in initial positions before vowels (e.g., water, west). However, in certain contexts, it becomes phonetically silent, a phenomenon known as "W-Ellipsis." Examples include words derived from Old French or Norman variants where the initial /w/ sound was lost following the Norman Conquest [^3]. The persistence of the written $\t…

2. Scots Language

   Linked via "Old French"

   This era is considered the literary zenith of Scots, marked by the flourishing of courtly poetry and administrative documentation. Key linguistic shifts included the generalization of the second-person singular pronoun thou and the transition of the dental fricative /θ/ in certain positions to the affricate /t͡s/ (often transcribed as ch), particularly before /i/ or /e/.
   A notable, though now largely extinct, feature of Middle Scots was the 'Vowel Dimorphism of the Tweed', wherein words adopted from [Old…