Re:Uncleftish Beholding: English minus the non-Germanic word...
by henderson101 on Wednesday April 30, 2014 @05:51AM
(#7672392)
Yes. The Norman French retained the S, where as it was lost in Central. Though, I've no idea of the timelines and how Norman ended up later on.
In french there is a common pattern where words lost an "s" while a vowel gained a circumflex. i.e. hospital -> hôpital, forest -> forêt, etc. I'm guessing hostel -> hôtel is another example of that pattern.