Episode 31: Saxons, Franks and Other West Germans
The History of English Podcast
00:00
The Origins of Norman French Pronunciation
The Normans didn't really have a problem pronouncing the W sound at the beginning of words and it isn't really clear why the Norman dialect was different. But they may have had greater contacts with the Germanic speaking peoples and were therefore more comfortable with that W pronunciation at the start of words. The same process is also how we got the names William and Guillaume. Both versions were borrowed from the Germanic languages.
Transcript
Play full episode
