Category: French (français)

Taverns, columns and caps

By Simon

What do the words in the title of this post have in common?

Well, they all originally come from Etruscan, according to Nicholas Ostler in Ad Infinitum – A Biography of Latin and the World it Created, one of the books I’m reading at the moment.

The English word tavern dates from the late 13th century, when it meant “wine shop”, and later came to mean “public house”. It comes from the Old French taverne, (shed made of boards; booth; stall; tavern; inn), from the Latin taberna (shop, inn, tavern) – originally “hut or shed”, from Etruscan [source]. The Greek word ταβέρνα (taverna) comes the Latin [source].

Column comes from the Old French colombe (column, pillar), from the Latin columna (pillar), which the Online Etymology Dictionary says is a collateral form of columen (top, summit), from the Proto-Indo-European base *kel- (to project), but which Nicholas Ostler believes comes from Etruscan.

Cap comes from the Old English cæppe (hood, head-covering, cape), from the Late Latin cappa (a cape, hooded cloak), which is possibly a shortened from capitulare (headdress) from caput (head) [source], or from the Etruscan.

Other Latin words that are thought to come from Etruscan include voltur (vulture), ātruim (forecourt), fenestra (window), caseus (cheese), culīna (kitchen), tuba (trumpet), urna (urn), mīles (soldier), Aprīlis (April), autumnus (autumn) and laburnum (shrub).

Cat got your tongue?

By Simon

Cat, Chat

The English idiom “Has the cat got your tongue?” is used when someone remains silent in situations where they are expected to say something. It could be glossed as, “Why don’t you say anything? Your silence is suspicious.” Possible origins of this phrase are discussed on this page. The French equivalent of this idiom is “Tu as perdu ta langue ?” (Have you lost your tongue?”).

In French there is a similar idiom involving cats and tongues: donner sa langue au chat (to give one’s tongue to the cat), but this means to give up or stop guessing when you don’t know the answer to something, or don’t know what someone is asking of you.

Apparently this idiom developed from the phrase jeter sa langue au chien (to throw one’s tongue to the dog), which originated in an era when leftover food was thrown to the dogs, and meant that you no longer felt like finding an answer to a question, so you might as well throw it to the dogs. Over time the phrase became donner sa langue au chat, as cats were considered secret keepers, and you gave your tongue to the cat in the hope that it would be able to answer the question [source]. An equivalent idiom in English is “to throw in the towel” or “to throw in the sponge”, expressions which come from boxing.

Are there any similar idioms in other languages?

Pelf

By Simon

Pelf noun, money or wealth, especially if dishonestly acquired; lucre. Also a slang term for money.

Etymology: from the Old French pelfre (booty); related to the Latin pilāre (to despoil).

[Source]

I came across this word today in The Times in an article about a British supermarket starting a pawn broking service, or more specifically a gold exchange service. I hadn’t encountered it before and thought at first that it was a typo. The context is:

Most of the other alchemists promising to turn gold into cupro-nickel are doing so at a rate so miserly that even a richly embossed heirloom would barely provide a widow’s pelf.
From: The Times, 3rd January 2011

Christmas

By Simon

Nadolig Llawen
Joyeux Noël
聖誕快樂
Nollaig shona doibh
¡Feliz Navidad!
Nollick Ghennal
Bo Nadal
Nollaig chridheil
メリークリスマス
Buon Natale
Frohe Weihnachten
Bon Nadal
Veselé vánoce
and Merry Christmas!

Colds, streams and rivers

By Simon

A snow-covered Siliwen Road in Bangor

It’s rather cold here at the moment with daytime temperatures not much above freezing, and nighttime dropping to -10°C (14°F) or even -20°C (-4°F) in places. As a result, some of the snow that fell last week has frozen solid and been trampled down on pavements and ungritted back streets making them decidedly icey and slippery.

I also have a cold at the moment, so I thought I’d look into how to say “I have a cold” in a number of languages. In French it’s “Je suis enrhumé” or “I am enrhumed”. Enrhumé comes from rhume (cold), which comes from the Old French reume, from the Latin rheuma, from the Greek rheuma (stream, current, a flowing), from rhein (to flow), from the Proto-Indo-European *sreu- (to flow). The Proto-Indo-European *sreu- is also the root of the Irish sruth (stream, river), the Welsh ffrwd (stream) and the Polish strumyk (brook). [source].

The Czech word for cold rýmu appears to be spring from the same source – mám rýmu is “I have a cold” by the way – as does the English word rheumatism. You can also say jsem nachlazený for “I have a cold” in Czech, which has a similar structure to the French phrase – “I am colded” or something like that.

In Welsh you don’t have a cold but rather a cold is on you: mae annwyd arna i, and the other Celtic languages use the same structure, “Is cold on/at me”: tá slaghdán orm (Irish), tha ‘n cnatan orm (Scottish Gaelic), ta feayraght/mughane aym (Manx).

In German “I have a cold” is Ich bin erkältet (“I am becolded?”), with erkältet coming from kalt (cold).

In Mandarin Chinese you say 我感冒了 (wǒ gǎnmào le) or “I catch cold [change of state particle]”.

Frankingle & Inglefrank

By Simon

This is a sort of guest post from François Bouillon

In the novel Peter Ibbetson by Georges Du Maurier, two bilingual children invent “Frankingle”, a language with English grammar and phonetics and a French lexicon, and “Inglefrank”, a language that works on the opposite principle.

François Bouillon has written Frankingle and Inglefrank versions of two stories by Jean De La Fontaine: La Grenouille qui veut se faire aussi grosse que le Boeuf and Le Laboureur et ses Enfants which he thought you might find interesting and amusing.

His purpose in translating these fables was serious enough. The strict rule he worked by was this: respect the phonology, grammar and spelling habits of one language and adapt the nouns, verbs and qualificative adjectives of the other language to it.

La Frogue Qui Se Veut Faire Aussi Bigue Que L’oxe

Une Frogue scia un Oxe
Qui lui sima de faire saïze.
Elle, qui n’était pas bigue en tout comme un ègue,
Enviouse, s’espraide, et se souelle, et se laboure,
Pour icoualer l’animal en fatenaisse,
Sayant : » Louquez bien, ma sistre ;
Est-ce ineuf ? Tellez-moi ; n’y suis-je point encore ?
– Naie. – M’y voici donc ? – Point du tout. – M’y voilà ?
– Vous n’en guettez point nire. » La piuneuse bumpequine
Se souella si bien qu’elle bursta.

Le vueurlde est foule de piples qui ne sont pas plus houaïzes :
Tout bourgise veut builder comme les bigues lordes,
Tout esmaule prince a des ambassadeurs,
Tout marcuisse veut avoir des pages.

The Labourer and His Infants

Travail, prend pain :
It’s the fonds that manks the least.

A rich Labourer, senting his mort prochain,
Had his Infants vene to him, parled to them without tesmoins.
“Guard yourselves, he ditted to them, from vending the heritage
That our parents laissed to us:
A treasure is cashed inside it.
I do not save the indroit; but a little courage
Will make you troove it: you will vene at the boot of it.
Remow your champ as soon as oust has been faited:
Cruise, fuel, beach; do not laiss any place
Whither the main neither passes, nor repasses.”
Once the peer mort, the Fills return the champ for you,
Hither and thither, everywhere: so well that at the boot of the an
It reported more to them.
Of argent, none was cashed. But the peer was sage
To monster them, ere his mort,
That travail is a treasure.

You can find the original texts of these tales, and English translations at:
http://www.jdlf.com/lesfables/livrei/lagrenouillequiveutsefaireaussigrossequeleboeuf
http://www.jdlf.com/lesfables/livrev/lelaboureuretsesenfants
http://oaks.nvg.org/fonta1.html#frogox
http://oaks.nvg.org/fonta5.html#zeploso

Leste

By Simon

Leste adj. [lɛst(ə)] – nimble, agile, sprightly, light; risqué (joke); offhand (remark).

This is a word I discovered last night while browsing a French dictionary. It is thought to come from an old Germanic word liste. A related adverb is lestement, which means nimbly, agilely, in a sprightly manner, lightly or offhandedly.

It’s related to the Spanish word listo, which has a number of meanings, including “ready, prepared, clever, sharp-witted, able, nimble”. It’s also related to the Portuguese word lesto, which means “quick, deft, nimble, swift, fleet, light footed, rapid, ready, clever, dexterous or skillful”. Other related words include the German listig (cunning, devious, shrewd) and leicht (easily, effortlessly, gently), which is related to the English word light(ly).

Light (not heavy) comes from the Old English leoht, from Proto-Germanic *lingkhtaz, from the Proto-Indo-European *le(n)gwh- (light, easy, agile, nimble), which is the root of leste, and also of lever [Source]

Russian mountains

By Simon

Yesterday evening I discovered that the French term for roller coaster is les montagnes russes or Russian mountains. This got me wondering what roller coasters have to do with Russian mountains, and I’ve found that from the 17th Century the Russian were constructing “Russian Mountains” – series of hills and slides of ice reinforced with wooden supports designed for sleighs. They were especially popular during the 18th century in St. Petersburg, and the idea spread to other parts of Europe. A version using wheeled wooden carts on tracks was built in Paris in 1804 and named Les Montagnes Russes.

During the early 19th century a number of mining and railway companies in the USA started offering the public rides on steeply-inclined sections of track at quiet times. These were known as scenic gravity railroads. In 1884 LaMarcus Adna Thompson opened a Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway at Coney Island in 1884, and patented many aspects of the roller coaster, including a patent for a Gravity Switch-back Railway in 1885.

The origins of the name roller coaster are uncertain. One theory is that it comes from the rollers fitted to the slides or ramps on early American roller coasters along which sleds coasted. Another theory is that the name comes from a ride located in a roller skating rink in Haverhill, Massachusetts which consisted of a sled that moved along the rollers that made up the track. The inventors of this ride, Stephen E. Jackman and Byron B. Floyd, claim the first use of the term “roller coaster”.

Russian Mountain is term for roller coaster in Spanish (montaña rusa), Portuguese (montanha russa) and Catalan (muntanya russa), and Russians call them американские горки (amerikanskie gorki) or American Mountains.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roller_coaster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Mountains

Tweaking

By Simon

Tweak
verb – 1. To pinch, pluck or twist sharply. 2. To adjust; fine-tune. 3. To make fun of; tease.
noun – 1. A sharp, twisting pinch. 2. A teasing remark or action; a joke. [source]

Etymolgoy: From the Old English twiccian (to pluck), from the Proto-Germanic. *twikjonan.

We were discussing tweaking last night in French, and this got me wondering about the English word’s etymology.

French equivalents include modifier légèrement, if you’re talking about make small adjustments; pincer for tweaking the nose; tirer for adjusting hair or a moustache; réglage is used for tuning an engine or adjusting a machine, and tordre means to twist or wring.

The phrase tirer les oreilles à qn means to tweak sb’s ears, and also to give somebody a dressing down.

Often you find that one word in English has a number of possible translations in other languages, and vice versa. If you rely on online dictionaries and machine translation, you don’t necessarily get all those translations. When people write to me requesting translations, they often ask me to translate single words into other languages. Words like love, strength, pride, faith, and so on are popular. The trouble is that they rarely specify what kind of love, pride, etc they mean. However if they just spend a bit of time thinking about this and tweaking their requests, they’re easier to deal with.

Crémaillère

By Simon

Crémaillère / Trammel

Crémaillère [kʀemajɛʀ] nf – trammel (chem.), rack (rail).

Etymology: from the Old French cramail, from Latin cramaculus (rack), from the Greek kremasti (suspend).

The French word crémaillère came up last night when I mentioned that I’m planning to have a housewarming party, the French equivalent of which is pendaison de crémaillère and pendre la crémaillère means “to have a house-warming party”. This word also features in the phrase for a rack or cog railway: chemin de fer à crémaillère, and engranage/direction à crémaillère is rack-and-pinion gear/streering.

The French version of the housewarming party originates in the Middle Ages when people cooked on open fires with pots suspended from a crémaillère (trammel). The crémaillère was usually the last thing to be installed in a new house, and once it was, people held a party to thank family, friends and all those who had helped them with the new house. This was known as a pendaison de crémaillère (hanging of the trammel) [source].

According to Wikipedia, the custom of having a housewarming party dates back to pre-central heating times when guests brought firewood and built fires in all the fireplaces in a new house in order to warm it. This was thought to chase away any evil spirits in the vicinity, which liked to take up residence in unoccupied houses. Apparently there was a custom of bringing gifts of bluebirds, which were thought to bring good luck and happiness to the new house.

Traditional housewarming gifts in countries such as Austria and Russia apparently include bread (to never go hungry), salt (so life is always full of flavour, or for long life), and a broom (to sweep away troubles) [source].

Do you have any housewarming traditions?

Do you have a party, hold a party, throw a party, or use another verb?