| For those of you who have studied the history of the English language, you will understand how some of these changes came about. For over 300 years after the conquest, Norman French (or Anglo-Norman) was the language of England, so you get the 'le', 'de', and 'del', which all mean 'of' or 'from.' Finally, around 1390 the prefixes were dropped and we became simply Chewe. The 'e' on the end was actually pronounced at least up until about the time that Chaucer died in 1400, but, according to Bill Bryson in "The Mother Tongue," the final 'e' had become silent by the 1500s. So it is only logical that it would ultimately be dropped from the spelling, starting about 1580. While the spelling makes the name look very different over the ages, it is not surprising since the language was evolving and writing was regional when it existed at all. Shifts in pronunciation of letters may also have kept the sound of the name somewhat constant while the spelling varied. If you are interested in the development of the English language, Bryson's "The Mother Tongue" (Wm. Morrow & Co., 1990) is fun to read and easy to understand. | |
