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Sound laws · Law 10 · Consonants

French CA becomes cha

CA

Spanish

ca kept

French

cha, che, chie [ʃ]

Italian

ca kept

Portuguese

ca kept

Romanian

ca kept (câ-, că- in Romanian spelling)

Catalan

ca kept

What happened

In early French, k before a was pulled forward to the palate, as it already had been before e and i, giving tʃ, which simplified to ʃ in the 13th century. The other five sisters kept a plain k. The vowel after it often changed too (see free-a), so cha-, che- and chie- all come from Latin CA. G before A did the same in French, giving j [ʒ]: VL GAMBA → jambe, beside Italian gamba.

Examples

LatinItalianSpanishFrenchPortugueseRomanianCatalanEnglish relative
CABALLUM‘horse’cavallocaballochevalcavalocalcavallcavalry
CANTĀRE‘to sing’cantarecantarchantercantarcântacantarchant
CAMPUM‘field’campocampochampcampocâmpcampcamp
CAPRAM‘goat’capracabrachèvrecabracaprăcabra
VACCAM‘cow’vaccavacavachevacavacăvaca
CASAM‘hut → house; French 'at the home of'’casacasachezcasacasăcasa

Decoder

French ch- before a vowel? Try c- in every sister: chanter → cantar, cantare, cânta; champ → campo, câmp, camp. Expect the French vowel to differ.

Exceptions

Norman and Picard French kept k, so English borrowed both versions: catch (Norman) and chase (Parisian), cattle and chattel. Learned and later borrowings keep ca in French too (capital, canal, cavalier from Italian).

Watch it happen: CABALLUM

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