The etomology of gaol

[richard1631978]

I've often wondered why gaol has a "soft g" (sorry don't know IPA or the names of phonemes!), is this due to a consental shift or the legacy of an old spelling convetion.

I know the would has old French roots, if that helps at all.

[Ser]

Etymology.

I'd recommend checking what etymonline says before asking such questions...

So... two different French dialects. In both dialects, the c- in the word's root became [g] (Latin caue- + diminutive suffix -ola, cf. Latin cauea > French cage). In Parisian French, word-initial [k, g] were palatalized to [tʃ, dʒ] before [a], but that didn't happen in Anglo-Norman.

Some borrowings with [k] in English but [ʃ] in modern French because of Anglo-Norman:
cant (as in Thieves' cant) - chant 'hymn, singing' (note the doublet "chant")
case - châsse 'reliquary'
cauldron - chaudron 'cauldron'
catch - chasser 'to hunt' (doublet: "to chase")
to carry - charrier 'to carry sth (on a vehicle)', 'to be kidding' (as in "are you kidding (me)?")

[Imralu]

jail (n.)
late 13c., gayhol, [...]

Lol, ... apt!

[Legion]

So... two different French dialects. In both dialects, the c- in the word's root became [g] (Latin caue- + diminutive suffix -ola, cf. Latin cauea > French cage). In Parisian French, word-initial [k, g] were palatalized to [tʃ, dʒ] before [a], but that didn't happen in Anglo-Norman.

Nitpick: as far as I know the palatalization (to various degrees) of [k g] before [a] (and not just word-initially) is a large Gallo-Romance areal feature that affected most Oil languages (except a few ones north-western ones), but also Franco-Provençal and the Rhaeto-Romance languages.

[Izambri]

So... two different French dialects. In both dialects, the c- in the word's root became [g] (Latin caue- + diminutive suffix -ola, cf. Latin cauea > French cage). In Parisian French, word-initial [k, g] were palatalized to [tʃ, dʒ] before [a], but that didn't happen in Anglo-Norman.

Nitpick: as far as I know the palatalization (to various degrees) of [k g] before [a] (and not just word-initially) is a large Gallo-Romance areal feature that affected most Oil languages (except a few ones north-western ones), but also Franco-Provençal and the Rhaeto-Romance languages.

And to a certain degree Northern Occitan (Limousin, Auvergnat, Vivaro-Alpine, Marchois): cantar, vaca, cargar, pagar vs. chantar, vacha, charjar, paiar.

[richard1631978]

Thanks for helping me out.