246 The Loom of Language The compound consonant ąt has made way for t* The preceding vowel then carries a circumflex accent., as in the examples below The change began in the eleventh century^ but a mute S before T persisted in written French till the reforms of 1740 Another specifically Old French sound-change has also cropped up in preceding tables The modern Fiench C is a hard (K) sound only before a> 0, and u Otherwise it stands for s Where C preceded a in Latin words it softened to the sh sound in shif>3 spelt CH in French orthography (cf, ckamon, champagm\ as in the following. POIUUGUKSK cavalo lisa ra cabc%a cousa In many English woids derived from French this initial CH conceals correspondence with the Spanish or Italian equivalent It does $o, for instance, in those below LAI IN I1ALIAN SPANISH caballo cavallo caballo camibia camicia cai capra capite caro capra capo cat cabc/a caio causa CO sa nuiNcn I'NGLISII CI1EVAL hone CHEMISE ihirt OHfeVRr goal CJIL** head cmR dear GHOSIJ thing LA UN SPANISH Jt'RFNCt! ENGLISH calefacerc calentar chaufler chafe cambio cambio change change campionc campc6n champion champion cancellario canciller chancclicr chatuclloi cantare cantar chanter ehattr capitulo capitulo chapitre chapter captiarc caxax cliasser chaw cantate cantad char it 6 chanty * carta carta chattc chart casto caste chaste chaste Another characteristically French sound-shift recalls what happened in Middle English and is still going on in Scandinavian dialects. Be- tween two vowels g softened to y or z or disappeared* Hence we get English old-new couplets such as royal-rega^ Iqyal-bgfa frail-fragile, (The English pronunciation of royal and loyal is a survival of the Old French stage*) Examples are in the following table* * In a metaphorical sense The anatomical head *s la t(te.