à la carte “on the menu”
French restaurants usually offer a menu with choices for each of the several courses at a fixed price. If you want something else (a side order), you order from the carte.

à la mode “in fashion, style”
In English, this means “with ice cream” – apparently someone decided that having ice cream on pie was the fashionable way to eat it.

à propos (de) “on the subject of”
In French, à propos must be followed by the preposition de. In English, there are four ways to use apropos (we leave out the accent and the space):
1. Adjective – appropriate, to the point: “That’s true, but it’s not apropos.”
2. Adverb – at an appropriate time, opportunely: “Fortunately, he arrived apropos.”
3. Adverb/Interjection – by the way, incidentally: “Apropos, what happened yesterday?”
4. Preposition (may or may not be followed by of) – with regard to, speaking of: “Apropos our meeting, I’ll be late”; “He told a funny story apropos of the new president.”

au jus “in the juice”
Served with the meat’s natural juices.

bon appétit “good appetite”
The closest English equivalent is “Enjoy your meal.”

c’est la vie “that’s life”
Same meaning and usage in both languages

cuisine “kitchen, food style”
In English, cuisine refers only to a particular type of food/cooking, such as French cuisine, Southern cuisine, etc.

cul-de-sac “bottom (butt) of the bag”
Dead-end street (I like that one because you’re actually saying a bad word — a**– without knowing it : )

déjà vu “already seen”
This is a grammatical structure in French, as in Je l’ai déjà vu=> I’ve already seen it. It can also disparage a style or technique that has already been done, as in Son style est déjà vu=> His style is not original.
In English, déjà vu refers to the scientific phenomenon of feeling like you have already seen or done something when you’re sure that you haven’t: a feeling of déjà vu = une impression de déjà vu.

du jour “of the day”
“Soup du jour” is nothing more than an elegant-sounding version of “soup of the day.”

encore “again”
A simple adverb in French, “encore” in English refers to an additional performance, usually requested with audience applause.

esprit de corps “group spirit”
Similar to team spirit or morale

faux pas “false step, trip”
Something that should not be done, a foolish mistake. 

fiancé, fiancée “engaged person, betrothed”
Note that fiancé refers to a man and fiancée to a woman.

gauche “left, awkward”
Tactless, lacking social grace

hors d’œuvre “outside of work”
An appetizer. Œuvre here refers to the main work (course), so hors d’œuvre simply means something besides the main course.

je ne sais quoi “I don’t know what”
Used to indicate a “certain something,” as in “I really like Ann. She has a certain je ne sais quoi that I find very appealing.”

joie de vivre “joy of living”
The quality in people who live life to the fullest

laissez-faire “let it be”
A policy of non-interference. Note the expression in French is laisser-faire.
matinée “morning”
In English, indicates the day’s first showing of a movie or play. Can also refer to a midday romp with one’s lover.

Oh là là “oh dear”
Usually misspelled and mispronounced “ooh la la” in English.

petite “small, short”
It may sound chic, but petite is simply the feminine French adjective meaning “short” or “small.”

pièce de résistance “piece of stamina”
In French, this originally referred to the main course – the test of your stomach’s stamina. In both languages, it now refers to an outstanding accomplishment or the final part of something – a project, a meal, etc.

potpourri “rotten pot”
A scented mixture of dried flowers and spices; a miscellaneous group or collection

raison d’être “reason for being”
Purpose, justification for existing

rendez-vous “go to”
In French, this refers to a date or an appointment (literally, it is the verb se rendre [to go] in the imperative); in English we can use it as a noun or a verb (let’s rendez-vous at 8pm).

savoir-faire “knowing how to do”
Synonymous with tact or social grace.

souvenir “memory, keepsake”
A memento

vis-à-vis (de) “face to face”
In French, when vis-à-vis precedes a noun and means facing, next to, or towards, it must be followed by the preposition de. In English it means “compared to” or “in relation with”: vis-à-vis this decision=> vis-à-vis de cette décision.

Voilà! “There it is!”
Nearly every time I see this in English, it is misspelled as “voilá” or “violà.”

I want to point out that I was not the one who did all this work! Somebody had already done it for me, and you can find many more French expressions right here. It just fit so perfectly with my blog that it would have been too bad not to use it…

Hope you’ve enjoyed reading about the influence of French on English during those 8 weeks. Have a fantastic summer everyone, and thanks for stopping by!

How's your French?

Last week we talked about how French changed some of the traditional Old English spelling. This week, we’re going to talk about pronunciation.

French, as did English, underwent some changes in pronunciations over the centuries. These changes in pronunciations can give us insight into when a particular French word was introduced into the English language. For example, in Old French, the letters ch were pronounced /ʧ/ (as in modern church) and words borrowed during the Middle English period reflect this pronunciation such as in chief, chamber, bachelor, duchess, or chivalry.

Later on, however, the affricate /ʧ/ was replaced by the fricative [š] (as in  shenanigan… don’t ask, that’s the first word that popped into my head), and French words introduced in English more recently reflect this shift in pronunciation:  For example, words such as attaché, brochure, champagne, chef, chaperon or chauffeur were borrowed during the Modern English period.

Similarly, the Old French sound [dž] as in judge, savage, damage, journey or large later shifted to the sound [ž] as reflected in words borrowed more recently such as bonjour, négligé, garage or collage.

Finally, the French vowels oi/oy  were diphthongized in Middle English in words such as loyal, royal, or joy, but retained their French pronunciation in later introduction such as soirée, joie de vivre or foie gras.

Between the Middle and the Modern periods, English had a tendency to develop diphthongs. This tendency disappeared over time which explains why French words borrowed well into the Modern English period did not have to undergo the same sound changes that they underwent during the Middle English period and that made them so different from their native pronunciation: “For example, the words fine, nice, guile, which had the vowel [ī] (as in Modern English feed) in Middle English, now have developed a diphthong [ai] along with the native find, mine, write ; but words like machine, clique, pique, élite did not become liable to this change since when they were borrowed the English tendency to diphthongize [ī] to [ai] had passed” (Serjeanston 157).

So now you can tell your friends that the word bachelor was borrowed from the French during the Middle English period but that the word chauffeur was borrowed more recently, and definitely during the Modern English period. How’s that for some trivia?

Source: Algeo, John, and Thomas Pyles. The Origins and Development of the English Language. 5^th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2004. Print. / Serjeanston, Mary S. A History of Foreign Words in English. London: Routledge & Keagan Paul, 1968. Print.

See also: Pronunciation Changes in French on Wikipedia.

How to make things more complicated

French not only expanded the word stock of English, it also influenced its spelling conventions. There exists a multitude of ways in which French had an impact on the writing of English, however here are four of the most influential ones:

(1) In Old English, the letter c could only be pronounced [k] (as in modern calculus) or [ʧ] (as in modern chocolate). However, in French the letter c could either be pronounced [k] in front of the vowels a, o, u, or [s] in front of the vowels i, e, y. Therefore to avoid ambiguity, a [k]-sounding c in Old English — such as in the word cynn — was replaced by a k in Middle English to reflect the French writing conventions: cynn became kin or kyn.

(2) The introduction of the French ch modified the spelling of some Old English words starting with the letter c: for example the Old English word cild /ʧild/ became child in Middle English.

(3) The French qu replaced the Old English spelling cw in words such as quellen or queen which in Old English were spelled respectively cwellan and cwēn.

(4) The /θ/ (as in modern thorn) and /ð/ (as is modern the) sounds were spelled th rather than with the Old English letters þ (thorn) and ð (eth), which did not exist in Norman.

Source: Algeo, John, and Thomas Pyles. The Origins and Development of the English Language. 5^th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2004. Print. / “History of English.” Wikipedia.org. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. 2010. Web.

What I love about English is how it has been so willing over the years to invite other languages to enrich it. This is very much opposite to the French language which is desperately trying to conserve its integrity. For example, “email” is no longer recognized as proper terminology in France. Rather, people should use “courriel”, a mix of the words “courrier” (for mail) and électronique (for electronic). How sad is that? Of course, in reality, a lot of people do not bother using “courriel” and continue to use “email” as they please, and as I think they should.

Because English remains to this day a language so open to the borrowing of words from other parts of the world, French has continued to be introduced in the English vocabulary over the years, though never at such a rate as it did during the Middle English period (Agleo and Pyles 281). Bryson points out that “We in the English-speaking world are actually sometimes better at looking after our borrowed words than the parents were. Quite a number of words that we’ve absorbed no longer exist in their place of birth. For instance, the French do not use nom de plume, double entendre, (…) or R.S.V.P.” (74).

Answer, darn it.

The first time somebody told me R.S.V.P. (Répondez S’il Vous Plaît — Respond/Answer Please), I had no clue that it was French, and I definitely did not know what it meant. Well duh, I’m French right, so shouldn’t I know? Double entendre has evolved into double entendu over the years so that we do not use double entendre anynore, but we do still understand what it means. And actually, we still do use nom de plume, that I know of anyway. It refers to pseudonyms, or pen names, authors use when they write.

Regardless of their reservations for one another, the French have much to learn from the willingness of the English to open their vocabulary to the world:  One cannot prevent a language from changing and expanding to better match the realities of its speakers; and in fact, the more realities a language can cover, the more universal, the more spread-out and the more unlikely to disappear does this language become.  Indeed, the French isolationism does nothing to help its language.

Remember what Walcott said?

“The English language is nobody’s special property. It is the property of the imagination:  It is the property of the language itself.”

I bet he would have argued that a language is not the property of its speakers, but rather the property of the purposes it must serve.

Sources: Algeo, John, and Thomas Pyles. The Origins and Development of the English Language. 5th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2004. Print. / Bryson, Bill. The Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Way. New York: Avon Books, 1990. Print.

The northern dialect of Old French spoken by the invaders became known in England as the Anglo-Norman dialect that was spoken in majority by the nobility. According to linguist Diana King

“For the next 300 years [following the Norman Conquest], no English King used English” (42).

Indeed, Anglo-Norman remained a language spoken by the ruling classes rather than by the lower classes who continued to use English. A series of events, including the Hundred Year’s War, the Black Death, and the emergence of English poetry, slowly led to a renewed dominance of English. By the end of the fourteenth century, it had become reestablished as the official written and spoken language of England.

Anglo-Norman Text

According to linguist Edward Finnigan,

“Languages in contact often borrow from one another”

and in fact, borrowing is a form of word creation that enables a language’s vocabulary to expand (459). By the time English replaced Anglo-Norman for official uses in 1362, a great number of Norman French words had become part of the English vocabulary, especially in the domain of the law. Words such as “justice, just, judge, jury, court, suit, sue, plaintiff and defendant, a plea, plead, (…), attorney, fee, accuse, crime, guile, felony, etc” all possess a French origin (Jepersen 84).

French was influential in many other domains of the English vocabulary and according to King “more than ten thousand words came into the language from Norman French, and most of them are still in use today” (45). These include words associated with the government such as “country, duke, duchess, liege, parliament, prince and sovereign” or words associated with the military such as “arms, armor, peace, war, battle, army and navy, and the various ranks – admiral, captain, lieutenant, officer, sergeant and soldier” (King 45).

Wasn't Chaucer way cool?

Because Norman French was spoken mostly by the elite, French words became associated with luxury items and activities such as “gourmet”, “bacon, beef, veal, mutton, pork and sausage” — which were types of meat rarely available to the common classes — “leisure, art, architecture, ornament, design, costume, color and paint, as well as joy and pleasure, and fruits and flowers” (King 46). French words continued to be borrowed throughout the Middle English period and had a great influence on the English vocabulary. In fact, the English poet Chaucer is known for having consistently used an average of ten percent and sometimes as much as fifteen percent of French words in his writings (Serjeanston 151).

Sources: Algeo, John, and Thomas Pyles. The Origins and Development of the English Language. 5th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2004. Print. / Jepersen, Otto. Growth and Structure of the English Language. 2nd ed. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1912. Archives.org. Web. 10 Nov. 2009. / King, Diana Hanbury. English Isn’t Crazy! The Elements of Our Language and How to Teach Them. Timonium: York Press, 2000. Print. / Serjeanston, Mary S. A History of Foreign Words in English. London: Routledge & Keagan Paul, 1968. Print.

Also See: Anglo-Norman on Wikipedia.

“The English language is nobody’s special property. It is the property of the imagination:  It is the property of the language itself.”

Indo-European-Languages-chart

An interesting aspect of language is how it grows and evolves in order to reflect a culture’s current realities and needs. The influence of French on the English language as a result of the Norman Conquest of the eleventh century particularly illustrates how the English language changed to reflect the realities of the time – that is to say, the cultural dominance of the invaders and the introduction of their language into English culture.

French and English both evolved from a Proto-Indo-European language but developed under different branches of the vast Indo-European language family. French belongs to the Romance languages that developed from Latin whereas English descended from Proto Germanic. Yet these two relatives, namely cousins, have exerted great influences over one another, and none is truer than the effects of Norman French over English.

Where the Hell is Normandy?

During the 10^th century BC, Norsemen populated part of France’s western coast which would later be known as Normandy. Over the years, these Norsemen, or Normans, adopted the French language as well as France’s feudal system (King 37). William, seventh Duke of Normandy and descendant of Rollo, believed for reasons of his own that the throne of England belonged to him (Algeo and Pyles 124-125). On the basis of this claim, he set out to conquer England and defeated the English under the leadership of King Harold in 1066 at the battle of Hastings. This date is known as the end of the Old English period and as the beginning of the Middle English era. In reality, changes did not take place over the span of a day or even a year. But it is true that the Norman Conquest of 1066 marked the beginning of major changes in the English language — changes that we will explore in the next post. I think you’ve had quite enough to hate me right there. Hey, I did not force you to read this.

Sources Cited: Algeo, John, and Thomas Pyles. The Origins and Development of the English Language. 5^th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2004. Print. / King, Diana Hanbury. English Isn’t Crazy! The Elements of Our Language and How to Teach Them. Timonium: York Press, 2000. Print.

What does this evoke to you?

One thing I have learned as a non-native speaker of English and as a translator is that language does not flow in only one direction and that words certainly do not have a unique meaning. This is actually pretty clear when one considers only a particular language, but it becomes even more apparent when considering multiple languages.

All right, I’m going to sound really boring here, but in Dr Macey’ Literary Criticism class, we recently talked about DeSaussure, a French linguist who theorized that words do not only have signification but that they also have value. What does he mean by that? Well, words signify, or name, a particular thing, but they also possess multiple connotations which make up their emotional depth, or value.

For example, the definition, or signification, of the word “flower” according to the Free Dictionary is: “the reproductive structure of some seed-bearing plants, characteristically having either specialized male or female organs or both male and female organs, such as stamens and a pistil, enclosed in an outer envelope of petals and sepals.” Pretty boring, right?

But if I tell you the word “flower”, you are not likely to think of this definition. In fact, you are all more likely to think of a different type of flower, because you all come from a different background, and a particular flower may evoke more to you than any other. In my case, when I think of the word “flower”, I think of yellow daisies or of lilac. Emotions and experiences are what make up your value of a word. This is why when we write, we prefer a word over another that may not sound quite right, and this is why some linguists argue that there exist no real synonyms (because no two words ever mean and evoke exactly the same thing).

All that to say that there exist different values of words between different languages, which often pose a major problem to translators when one word in one language does not really have an equivalent in meaning and connotation in another language. To give you a typical French example, we (the French that is) have a word “terroir” that does not possess an English equivalent. There is no one word in the English language that translates all that “terroir” means to a French. According to the WordReference dictionary (which is a pretty good dictionary by the way, for French and English anyway). “terroir” is translated by “land”. But “terroir” means much more than just “land”. It speaks of the soil, of its history, of the climate it is subject to, and even of its flavors, especially when it comes to wine making. These are all the things that “terroir” connotes to a French person and that cannot be translated into one English word.

I guess this is why we speak of things lost in translation. There are values to words that dissipate and disappear from one language to the next, yet language is such a powerful tool of creation that its meanings are endless.

Words travel, and this is especially obvious in the American English language which is so open to words from languages the world over. So there is no one way, and words certainly do not have a sole meaning. Yet sometimes they are so unique to us that no other can replace them.