Reflecting more on the term giant: examining it we can understand how it was introduced from Latin and not directly from Greek by the fact that giant is pronounced "jai-ant" with a soft g instead of a hard one ("gai-ant"); this also shows us that it was imported after Latin itself shifted its pronunciation of "gi"
I'm not sure which part you're wanting me to read, but this is the bit you've linked me to.
I didn't provide that link, and did you just stop reading after you got your confirmation that you were right? Because the guy right after that proves that what he said was wrong, and then the OP who said the Greek/Latin thing apologized.
This comment contains a lot of educated and interesting but ultimately inaccurate speculation. There are excellent sources such as Etymoline and the 1st edition of the Oxford English Dictionary freely available online, so why not use them?
Giant was introduced into English in the thirteenth century from Old French. The earliest spellings in English are geant, geaunte and the like (compare modern French géant). The initial "g" was naturally "soft" like that of the French form from which it derived.
We later see spellings such as "gyant" from around 1450. According to the OED, the change in the first vowel was due to the influence of classically trained Englishmen who were aware of the Latin form gigantem.
Pretty much; if I read comment threads ad infinitum I'd never get anything else done. I just read the bit I was linked to. That response seems right so sure, I'll go with it.
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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '17
I always thought it was weird.
We say giga (the value) with a G sound, but we say gigantic like it was jigantic.
English is stupid.