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I. If the first syllable is not strongly accented, the h naturally becomes imperceptible and the vowel may become lengthened to à in pronunciation. Tlius Hun- garian Kàvé, Bohemian Kdva, Polish Kdwa. French café prefers surd./’instead of sonant v, while Croatian and Servian use both Kafa and Kava.
Roumanian cajeà, being accented on last syllable, retains the short vowel n and lias only one /’(in place of v).
II. If the first syllable of qdltvàh is strongly accen- ted, an attempt will be made to pronoiince the letter Il and the tendency will be to replace the aspirate by the nearest fricative. As h is a surd the fricative surd/ would be the most natural substitate. Thus we get Kâfve or Kàjïoe, and by assimilation Kâff’e.
The first syllable is the most prominent, so it isthe h that first becomes/, and then v or w becomes/also.
It is only in case II that the vowel a changes to o ; foras the Arabie vowel n is absent in most European languages, and the syllable bears a strong stress, o is the nearest vowel équivalent.
So far we hâve considered the matter purely on gê- nerai ])lionetic grounds. But the same inferences folio w from a study of the varions forms in which the word actually appears in European writings of the 16th. and 17th. centuries. We take the following extracts prin- cipally from Yule’s « Hobson-Jobson ».
1573 A. D. (( Among the rest they hâve a very good
drink by them called Chaube ». Rauwolff. c. 1580 A. D. (( Ex his seminibus tum Aegyptii tum
