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Dear Andy (hello again, this is Richard Coates from Brighton!), The quote you give is misleading in several respects. First, there can be no doubt that the name was pronounced with [shr-] like the present name from late Anglo-Saxon times onwards. The different spellings are simply different attempts to get to grips with it in writing. Old English (Anglo-Saxon) would normally write <scr-> for this, hence the most ancient forms. Later, in Middle English, the normal spelling for the sequence of sounds is <shr->, and that's what we still have today. Norman users of French had no [shr-] in their language and couldn't handle the English easily. Sometimes they wrote <sr-> and sometimes they put an "epenthetic" vowel in: <sar->; what they actually SAID, we don't know, but [sar-] seems quite likely. Then there's the problem of <r> sometimes turning up as <l>, as you mention. This is a typical normanism, but it's nothing to do with metathesis, which means inverting the order of adjacent sounds. The "epenthetic" vowel is an extra sound, not one moved from somewhere else. Forms with <b> in the spelling where the <w> now is are found right through to the 16th century, and the final part of the story as given is more or less right, except that it omits to say the modern local pronunciation is [shroozbri]. The quote is right about the development of the county-name. I've used <...> to enclose SPELLINGS and [...] to enclose PRONUNCIATIONS, but I've used normal English letters to represent the sounds, not the specialist phonetic alphabet. All the best, Richard > Hello, > > (new member) > > Quote: > > Shrewsbury - has one of the most complex developments of English place names > and illustrates the changes wrought in Old English words by Anglo-Norman > scribes who could not pronounce them. Recorded 1016 as Scrobbesbyrig, it > originally may have meant "the fortified place in (a district called) The > Scrub." The initial consonant cluster was impossible for the scribes, who > simplified it to sr-, then added a vowel to make it easier still. The name > was also changed by Anglo-Norman loss or metathesis of liquids in words > containing -l-, -n-, or -r- (also evident in the derivatives of O.Fr. > Berengier "bear-spear" -- O.H.G. Beringar -- name of one of the paladins in > the Charlemagne romances and a common given name in England 12c. and 13c., > which has come down in surnames as Berringer, Bellanger, Benger, etc.). Thus > Sarop- became Salop- and in the 12c. and 13c. the overwhelming spelling in > government records was Salopesberie, which accounts for the abbreviation > Salop for the modern county. During all this, the inhabitants (as opposed to > the scribes) still pronounced it properly, and regular sound evolutions > probably produced a pronunciation something like Shrobesbury (which turns up > on a 1327 patent roll). After a predictable -b- to -v- (a vowel in the > Middle Ages) to -u- shift, the modern spelling begins to emerge 14c. and is > fully established 15c > > http://www.geocities.com/etymonline/s6etym.htm > > Question: > > Is this still the modern thinking on this subject, or is the explanation, > too simplified, too ingenious? > > Question 2: > > Are there any example available fo the loss of the 'n' in words or place > names as the the result of Norman influence? Or for any other reason? > > Maybe the 'n' was only lost in conjunction with other letters? > > I am NOT a philologist (branch of knowledge that deals with the structure, > historical development, and relationships of a language or languages) or at > least I am not an expert in languages. I usually manage to get into a muddle > if I try. > > Cheers > > Andy Horton > [log in to unmask] > Writer & Photographer > http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/BMLSS/andy.htm > > Fight Spam on the Internet > http://spam.abuse.net/ > > ><< ( ( ( ' > > -- Richard Coates Dean, School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QH, UK Professor of Linguistics Secretary, International Council of Onomastic Sciences (ICOS) Tel.: +44 (0)1273 678030 (secretary Jackie Gains) Fax: +44 (0)1273 671320 Email: [log in to unmask] Website: www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/richardc Colleagues with ICOS business should use the email address above