French-Swiss Phonetics

[ndedross]

I have a question on Anglo-French phonetics. The records I have from 1750-1800 are entered as they sounded to the English scribe, which is not necessarily as they would be written. How would the name DEDEROD, from Anieres near Geneva, spoken by a French speaker sound to an English person? For example, is the final ‘D’ silent, to give Dead-er-row, say?

[jorose]

It could be; for example, my Praud side pronounce their surname as 'Prau', but I don't know much about the Swiss accent (particulary not the Swiss accent in the 1750s!). Another similar name is the French surname Diderot.

[Manchester Rambler]

The modern pronunciation is something like "dur-dur-row", with the first 2 syllables pronounced just like the French word "de".  I don't think it would have been very different in the 18th century. 

Rambler

[Hackstaple]

I remember this matter from my school days. Our senior French master told us that the ending "d" and "t" in French were interchangeable and that the aspirant ending had started to come into use from the 16th century. This allowed genderisation of adverbs so "un grand gentilhomme" with the silent d" or "une grande madame" where the added -e causes the d to be pronounced virtually as a "t". However, some French speakers of note, like Jacques Chirac do not always abide by this custom and there is no assurance that pronunciation in Geneva would be the same as in Paris.
I would bow to anyone more current on this as my French is rusty and I haven't spoken it at all for nearly 20 years and it was only tolerable even then.

[ndedross]

Thank-you all for your replies.

It is now 23 years since I discovered my direct ancestor, Nicolas, came to Hoxton from Cologny (Geneva) around 1750-52. Since then, I’ve paid researchers in France and Switzerland to try and locate where he came from, to no success.

The earliest entries by English scribes record him as Daderrow (1754), Dedrow, Deadrose and Deadrowss (1769). The name as it appears and sounds today (Dedross – ‘dead-ross’) first appears in 1772, and I’m certain this is the anglicised form, and not original.

When he married, the priest from Northern France, recorded his name as Dedros. A leading ‘De’ was quite often added by refugees. I have searched the Cologny registers (bmb) for Dedros/Dros/Droz and found nothing even remotely close. Up to yesterday, I had concluded the most likely solution was his name was Droz and he possibly went to the University at Geneva before heading to England.

I came across Dederod by a weird chance (I was searching for business training materials and somehow ended up on Swiss Roots!) This reminded me of ‘Daderrow’ from the Land Tax record in 1754. Plus, Anieres, although Catholic is very close to Protestant Cologny.  So, I thought it might be a viable alternative.

It all depends upon the phonetic, and the French speaking gene appears to have vanished from my DNA!

Cheers,

Nigel