According to this page on "La prononciâtion du Jèrriais", "th" in Jèrriais is pronounced "coumme th en Angliais 'though'". Example: malheutheux "unhappy". In other words, it's a voiced interdental fricative.
A brief scan through the Pages Jèrriaises suggests that Jèrriais "th" corresponds to standard French "r" when it's between vowels within a word: thus
| standard French |
heures | lire | mémoire | héritiers | histoires | souris | parole |
| Jèrriais | heuthes | liéthe | mémouaithe | héthitchièrs | histouaithes | souothis | pathole |
but
| standard French |
raisonnable | récalcitrant | rouler |
| Jèrriais | raisonnabl'ye | r'calcitrant | rouôler |
I wonder if this is a contact effect? and if so, is it due to contact between Jèrriais and English, or to historical connections of both to some common influence?
Interdental fricatives (voiced or voiceless) are "marked" sounds, not very commonly found in the world's languages. They're hard for children to learn, and harder for adult speakers who didn't learn as children. My oldest son, when he was three or so, continued to say "thin" as "fin". So I made the usual parental mistake of trying to coach him:
Me: "Put your tongue between your teeth and blow, like this: thththththth!"
Him: "ththththththth!"
Me: "Great! Now say 'ththth...thin'!"
Him: "thththth...fin!"
Anyhow, English deploys its interdental fricatives in some pretty fiendish combinations, like "sixths", which involves the kind of lingual gymnastics that cluster fans (justly) ooh and aah over in Northwest Coast or Caucasian languages. We've made life a bit easier for children and foreigners by dropping the third person singular ending "-eth", which doesn't generally create within-word clusters, but did traditionally get involved in some difficult sequences, like "pisseth against the wall". Try saying that three times, fast!
I feel no compunction in reproducing this phrase in a family-oriented weblog because it's from the bible, as Suzette Haden Elgin points out in the web-accessible sample issue of the her Linguistics and Science Fiction Newsletter. In fact, it occurs six times (allowing for variation in definiteness), as this search at UVa's convenient Electronic Text Center shows:
1 Kings, 14.10: Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone.
1 Kings, 16.11: And it came to pass, when he began to reign, as soon as he sat on his throne, that he slew all the house of Baasha: he left him not one that pisseth against a wall, neither of his kinsfolks, nor of his friends.
1 Kings, 21.21: Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel,
1 Samuel, 25.22: So and more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall.
1 Samuel, 25.34: For in very deed, as the LORD God of Israel liveth, which hath kept me back from hurting thee, except thou hadst hasted and come to meet me, surely there had not been left unto Nabal by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall.
2 Kings, 9.8: For the whole house of Ahab shall perish: and I will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel:
From the context, these phrases do not seem to represent any concern for the public health consequences of promiscuous urination, but rather are just a poetic way of saying "male human."
For example, the New International Version translates 1 Kings 14.10 as
Because of this, I am going to bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam. I will cut off from Jeroboam every last male in Israel-slave or free. I will burn up the house of Jeroboam as one burns dung, until it is all gone.
and the New American Standard Bible has
therefore behold, I am bringing calamity on the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam every male person, both bond and free in Israel, and I will make a clean sweep of the house of Jeroboam, as one sweeps away dung until it is all gone.
But none of the religious instruction of my youth dealt with this question. I'll update this post as I learn more.
Posted by Mark Liberman at April 8, 2004 10:38 AM