Jew (word) Jew (word) The English term Jew originates in the Biblical Hebrew word "Yehudi", meaning "from the Kingdom of Judah", or "Jew". It passed into Greek as "Ioudaios" and Latin as "Iudaeus", which evolved into the Old French "giu" after the letter "d" was dropped. A variety of related forms are found in early English from about the year 1000, including "Iudea", "Gyu", "Giu", "Iuu", "Iuw", and "Iew", which eventually developed into the modern word. According to the Book of Genesis, Judah (, "Yehudah") was the name of the fourth son of the patriarch Jacob. During the Exodus, the name was
Phonological history of French the rest of the Vulgar Latin world the loss of final -M. Since this sound was basic to the Latin noun case system, its loss levelled the distinctions upon which the synthetic Latin syntax relied, forcing the Romance languages to adapt a more analytic syntax, based on word order. Old French also dropped many internal consonants when they followed the strongly stressed syllable; Latin > Proto-Romance > OF "pierre"; cf. Spanish "piedra" ("stone"). In some contexts, became , still written "oi" in Modern French. During the early Old French period, it was pronounced as the writing suggests, as as a