iaue

Forms

iaue f (oblique plural iaues)^[1]

• egua, ewe, eve, aive, eawe, eaue, awe^[2][3][4]

Early and regional spellings: egua in the Vie de saint Alexis, ewe from the Roland to the 13th century, eve in the 12th and 13th centuries, aive, eawe about 1290 and iaue.^[2] Eastern and north-eastern awe, without the rounding of the vowel.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin aqua (“water”).^[1][2][5][6] The Latin word continues Proto-Italic *akwā-, with cognates only in Germanic, Gothic 𐌰𐍈𐌰 (aƕa) and Old High German aha from Proto-Germanic *aχwō, and de Vaan notes that this Italic and Germanic word may have been borrowed from a non-Indo-European language.^[7] Its Romance cognates include Italian acqua, Spanish agua and Romanian apă.^[8]

In the Latin word the group /kw/ weakened to /w/ and the first vowel moved towards /ɛ/, which gave egua in the Vie de saint Alexis and ewe in the Roland.^[9] Pope traces the regional outcomes: the west had the form of the Roland by the 11th century, the centre developed a glide and wrote eaue, and the north-east kept an unrounded awe.^[3][4] In the west the /w/ later became /v/, giving eve and aive, while elsewhere it became a vowel, which led through the central form to French eau.^[9]

Bloch and Wartburg take aigue, the head word of Tobler–Lommatzsch and the DÉCT, for a form borrowed from the South,^[6] while the DHLF calls it both an old French form and a southern one.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Vie de saint Alexis, which the DEAF bibliography dates to about 1090 and the TLFi to about 1050.^[11][12] There the word, spelled egua, already means water poured out: L'egua li getent, si moilent sun liçon “they throw the water over him and wet his bed”.^[12][13]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word named both the liquid and a stretch of it: the Roland has les ewes curant “the running waters”, and in Chrétien de Troyes it is a river to be crossed, deep water round a walled bailey, and sea water.^[12][14] A text of 1185 uses it for a fluid of the body: l'eaue du cuer li est as yex montee “the water of the heart has risen to the eyes”.^[12]

The spelling eaue lasted into the 16th century,^[6] when the word was still said with two vowels; by the 17th century it was a single /o/.^[3] The modern word is French eau, and the western eve survives in Poitou.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1090 – egua in the Vie de saint Alexis (about 1050 by the TLFi's dating).^[11][13][12]
• c. 1100 – ewe in the Chanson de Roland, whose Oxford manuscript is Anglo-Norman of the second quarter of the 12th century.^[15][16]
• 1104–1106 – ewe in the earliest Anglo-Norman text the AND cites for the word.^[17]
• c. 1170 – eve in Chrétien de Troyes's Erec et Enide.^[14][18]
• 1175–1200 – iaue in Garin le Loherain.^[19][20]
• 1185 – eaue for a fluid of the body.^[12]
• 1490 – the modern spelling eau.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. water, the liquid, also as one of the elements.^[17][14]
2. a body of water: a river, stream or the sea.^[14][17]
3. a flood.^[17]
4. a fluid of the body.^[12]

Anglo-Norman

The AND heads the word ewe, first cites it from 1104–1106, and lists spellings from aeve and awe to yaue.^[17] The AND records set phrases such as aler a l'ewe “to undergo the ordeal by water”, ewe beneite “holy water”, ewe de vie “brandy” and bailiff d'ewes, a water-bailiff or harbour-master.^[17] Pope compares the English word ewer with the western form.^[3]

Word family

• ewage
• ewer
• aiguete

Descendants

• Angevin iau^[1]
• Bourbonnais-Berrichon iau^[1]
• Bourguignon aoue^[1]
• Champenois iau^[1]
• Franc-Comtois âve^[1]
• Gallo iau^[1]
• Lorrain auve^[1]
• Middle French eau (→ French eau)^[1]
• Norman iâo^[1]
• Picard iau^[1]
• Poitevin-Saintongeais aeve^[1]
• Walloon aiwe^[1]

Usage notes

The dictionaries head the word differently: Tobler–Lommatzsch and the DÉCT under aigue,^[21][14] the AND under ewe,^[17] and the DMF under eau.^[22]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 25:63
3. ^ a b c d Pope, Mildred K. (1934), From Latin to Modern French with Especial Consideration of Anglo-Norman: Phonology and Morphology, Manchester: Manchester University Press (revised reprint 1952), p. § 330
4. ^ a b c Pope, Mildred K. (1934), From Latin to Modern French with Especial Consideration of Anglo-Norman: Phonology and Morphology, Manchester: Manchester University Press (revised reprint 1952), p. § 482
5. ^ Gamillscheg, Ernst (1966–1969), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der französischen Sprache, 2nd, fully revised ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 361
6. ^ a b c d Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France, p. 247
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. aqua
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 570
9. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. eau
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. aigue
11. ^ a b Möhren, Frankwalt, Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien français (DEAF): Complément bibliographique, electronic version (DEAFBiblEl), Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, alma.hadw-bw.de/deafbibl (texts by siglum, with their dates), p. AlexisP
12. ^ a b c d e f g h Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard
13. ^ a b UD Old French PROFITEROLE and UD Middle French PROFITEROLE treebanks, Universal Dependencies (from the SRCMF and the Base de français médiéval; texts by DEAF siglum), p. AlexisZ
14. ^ a b c d e Dictionnaire électronique de Chrétien de Troyes (DÉCT), LFA / Université d'Ottawa – ATILF, CNRS / Université de Lorraine (2014), p. s.v. aigue
15. ^ Möhren, Frankwalt, Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien français (DEAF): Complément bibliographique, electronic version (DEAFBiblEl), Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, alma.hadw-bw.de/deafbibl (texts by siglum, with their dates), p. RolS
16. ^ Stein, Achim; Kunstmann, Pierre; Gleßgen, Martin-D., eds., Nouveau Corpus d'Amsterdam, version 4 (lemmatised corpus of Old French texts, after A. Dees), Universität Stuttgart, github.com/michaniets/NCA (texts by DEAF siglum), p. RolS
17. ^ a b c d e f g Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. ewe
18. ^ Möhren, Frankwalt, Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien français (DEAF): Complément bibliographique, electronic version (DEAFBiblEl), Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, alma.hadw-bw.de/deafbibl (texts by siglum, with their dates), p. ErecF
19. ^ Camps, Jean-Baptiste, et al., Geste: a lemmatised corpus of Old French chansons de geste, github (texts by DEAF siglum), p. GarLorrI
20. ^ Möhren, Frankwalt, Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien français (DEAF): Complément bibliographique, electronic version (DEAFBiblEl), Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, alma.hadw-bw.de/deafbibl (texts by siglum, with their dates), p. GarLorrI
21. ^ Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 1:236
22. ^ Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf, p. s.v. eau