>> Johannes Patruus wrote:

>>> http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry:showfullentry/true?t:ac=Entry/...

>>> Patruus

>> Quoted from the definition;
>> The u in Middle French reliquaire is purely graphic, as also in English
>> relique , variant of relic n. The modern pronunciation of the English
>> word with /w/ (recorded already in 18th-cent. sources) probably arose as
>> a result of association with post-classical Latin reliquiarium or with
>> classical Latin reliquiae relics (see relic n.).

>> I know that modern French pronounces "qu" as "k"; but there's a
>> suggestion in the above that the /w/ sound in English only came in quite
>> recently.
>> How recently?

>> And how about classical Latin pronunciation? How did Cicero pronounce
>> his brother's name; Quintus?

> Definitely as "kw-". The whole reason that the letter Q survives in Latin
> (it was deleted from Greek) is the recognition by those who adapted the
> alphabet to Latin that the "k" sound in "kw-" is sounded further back in
> the mouth. In the West Semitic languages (as is still the case in Arabic
> -- thus, such words as "Iraq"), "k" and "q" were distinct phonemes,
> although they are allophones in most Western languages. Apparently, in
> Archaic Latin, they either were not allophones, or were allophones that
> were nevertheless recognized as two distinct phones even by
> non-specialists, like the two sounds of "ch" in Modern German.