Читать книгу Geofroy Tory. Painter and engraver; first royal printer; reformer of orthography and typography under François I онлайн

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'Et se aucuns demandoit por quoi cist livres est escriz en romans selonc le langage des François, puisque nos somes Ytaliens, je diroie que ce est por deux raisons: lune, car nos somes en France, et lautre, porce que la parleure est plus delitable et plus commune a toutes gens.'[75]

As I have said, the third book is the important part of Tory's work. Laying theory aside, he there gives us the exact design of the letters of the alphabet and the method of executing them. He does not overlook, moreover, this essential fact—that the designer of letters and the printer ought before all else to be grammarians in the ancient meaning of the word[76]; and at the same time that he gives us the shape of a letter, he instructs us as to its value and pronunciation. It is at this point that Tory's book becomes especially interesting to us: he passes in review the pronunciation in vogue in each of the French provinces, or nations, as they were called then. One after another they appear before us, with their special idioms, which have become mere myths to-day,—Flemings, Burgundians, Lyonnaises, Forésiens, Manseaux, Berrichons, Normans, Bretons, Lorrainers, Gascons, Picards, and even Italians, Germans, English, Scotch, etc. His observations do not stop at the somewhat mixed idioms of the men,[77] but extend to the more individual language of the women. For instance, he informs us that 'the ladies of Lyon often gracefully pronounce A for E, as when they say, "Choma vous choma chat effeta,"[78] and a thousand other like expressions'; whereas, on the contrary, 'the ladies of Paris very often pronounce E instead of A, as when they say: "Mon mery est a la porte de Peris, ou il se faict peier"; instead of saying, "Mon mary est a la porte de Paris, ou il se faict paier."'[79]