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Brünnhilde the Valkyrie by Arthur Rackham

Eggs are oval. The word egg is even etymologically related to oval. Oval comes from Latin ōvālis (egg-shaped), a derivative of ōvum (egg), the ancestor of Spanish huevo, French œuf and others. Latin ōvum, in turn, was a distant cousin of Germanic *ajjan, the ancestor of Old Norse egg. This word was borrowed into Middle English and gradually displaced the native word ey. Click my new infographic graphic to learn more.

In 1490, William Caxton wrote an anecdote on eggs and eyren. Commenting on the linguistic diversity of English, which made creating a standardised English hard, he told the story of a group of northern merchants asking a southern lady for eggs:

“And one of them, named Sheffelde, a mercer, cam in to an hows and axed for mete, and specyally he axyd after eggys. And the goode wyf answerde that she coude speke no frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry for he also coude speak no frenshe, but wolde have hadde egges and she understode hym not. And thenne at laste a nother sayd that he wolde have eyren; then the good wyf sayd that she understood hym wel. Loo, what sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte: egges or eyren? Certaynly it is harde to playse every man bycause of dyversite & chaunge of langage.” (And one of them, named Sheffeld, a mercer, entered a house and asked for food, and specifically he asked for eggs. And the good lady answered that she couldn’t speak French. And the merchant was angry because he couldn’t speak French either, but he wanted to have eggs and she didn’t understand him. And then, at last, another person said that he wanted to have eyren; then the good lady said that she understood him wel. Oh, what should one write nowadays: egges or eyren? It’s certainly hard to please everyone because of diversity and change of language.)

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the language nerd in me is fucking screaming and crying about the fact that Cassandra Pentaghast has what i believe may be the most accurate impression of the extinct gothic germanic accent we have, and the fact that they didn't even try to give anyone else from Nevarra the same accent is fucking criminal

yes i know it is an entirely made up accent that miranda developed herself, she unintentionally hit the nail on the fucking head with the accent of a dead language that would even be lore accurate with the placement of Nevarra relative to orlais and the other neighboring countries

also im sorry using Gothic as the language inspiration for nevarran??? is that not like too fucking perfect??

like yeh i get it accent training people for a fake accent is ridiculously hard

i do not care

give me gothic nevarrans in the truest sense of the word

i might post the notes find the notes here i have on the actual linguistic comparisons if anyone cares because i studied her pronunciation to compare to historical texts when i made the connection