Oyez!

A friend recently read that the bailiff opens the sessions of the United States Supreme Court by saying "oyez, oyez!" She asked me: how is that pronounced, is it Latin, what does it mean, and why do they do it? Good questions all, especially because I know the answers.

The pronunciation of "oyez" varies. In England, where it is also used, it has come to sound like "oh, yes" (and is sometimes spelled "oyes") and that pronunciation is found in dictionaries. But in America "oh, yay," which the dictionaries also list, is perhaps more common. This may reflect the tendency of the British to anglicize, and of Americans not to anglicize, words that are French.

Oyez is Norman French, from the verb oir, which comes from the Latin verb audire, both of which mean "to hear." Oyez (or oiez) is the plural imperative. "Hear ye" is a good translation and that is where we got that phrase. Oyez is what they said to start courts back in the days, centuries ago, when Norman French was the language educated people spoke. It continued to be used in the days (into the 18th Century) when the conglomeration of Norman French, English, and Latin known as "law French" was still spoken in English courts.

To understand why they said it a slightly different, but equally good, translation helps. It means "listen!" In other words, "everybody settle down and be quiet, we're going to start the court now." It was also the word traditionally used by English town criers, who meant "everybody shut up and listen to me."

One wonders if courts would still use the term if they realized that all they are saying is "listen up." This is another, and a comparatively harmless, example of lawyers doing things because that's the way they've always been done, without knowing or caring why it was done that way. For better or worse, much in the practice of law operates on the same principle.