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In the east of Britain, /G/ followed by a front vowel (i, e, occasionally æ) usually becomes a palatal sibilant. In the early post-Roman era this sibilant merged with the approximant /j/ now spelled "y", but in words/names introduced later the palatal version of "g" merged with the Norman French development of "j" as a new sibilant in which the written form sometimes alternates between "j" and "g". When Welsh Guinevere was taken into Cornish, the w/u from the stem word was lost and the resulting Gi/Ge becomes palatalized as the sibilant version.

This message was edited 10/20/2021, 6:48 AM