Lively story of living words (Histoire vive des mots vivants) Alina-Carmen Ciolc

The present work proposes a synthetic insight into the field of French etymology, involving facts related to language history, semantic and morphologic evolution of the analyzed terms and evidently the historical and social evolution of France and of the French people. In fact, far from claiming an exhaustive approach of the topic, the paper will attempt at emphasizing precisely the intrinsic connection between linguistic evolution and factual history, the latter as a generative factor of the former. 1.Brief theoretic introduction into the concept of etymology I shall start with the very etymology of the term, originating from the Latinized form etymologia of the Greek word , composed of etymos (true, , veritable) and , logos (word, science). Thus the literal-etymological meaning of the term should be that of science of the truth. In their work Histoire de la langue franaise, Jacqueline Picoche and Christiane MarcelloNizia simply define it as prehistory of language1, identifiable as a modern discipline since the 17th century. Etymology obviously designates the diachronic branch of linguistics studying the origin and the phonetic, semantic and morphologic evolution of the words, as well as the very provenance of a term. On the other hand, the well-known linguist and professor Yakov Malkiel, in his book entitled precisely Etymology, deems definitions like the science of the origin of words much too reductive and proposes a quasi-mystical approach of the notion, taking into account the cultural-magical charge that the socio-historical context confers to the word, a charge that transcends time and renders etymology equivalent to the initiation act of solving a riddle or a mystery2. 2. The Liguro-Iberian substrate Contrary to the generalised perception according to which the Celts had been the first inhabitants of Gaul, ancestors of the French people, far from being the first to have reached this land, they were preceded by populations coming from North-Eastern Europe,

Jacqueline PICOCHE, Christiane MARCHELLO-NIZIA Histoire de la langue franaise, Nathan, Paris, p. 323 2 Yakov MALKIEL, Etymology, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1993, p. 1
1

respectively from Africa: the Ligures and the Iberians3 and, as it shall be further demonstrated, the Greeks. The Ligures occupied, before the Iberians, Ron basin, Franche-Comt, Switzerland, the Alps and Northern Italy, and their language left especially toponymical traces4. Suffixes such as -ascus/ -a, -oscus/ -a, uscus/ -a are considered to be of Liguric origin. An example in this sense is the toponym Venasque, transformed afterwards into Vindasca, at present Comtat-Venaissin. One term preserved in French, entered through the Provenal dialect, is calanque, derived from the Liguric calanca, which designates the fiords from the coastal area between Marseille and Toulon, once inhabited by the Ligures. In exchange, the Iberians occupied the South-western part of Gaul, most probably around the 6th century BC, but the terms of Iberian origin are rare in French, an example being the word esquer (Spanish izquierdo) which means left5. 3. The Greek colonies Amid the Iberian invasion, the Mediterranean coast was colonized by Dorians and Greeks from Asia Minor. This can be confirmed by the etymology of a series of toponyms. In this sense, Marseille derives from the Greek form Massala (latinized as Masslia), Monaco is the actual form of the Greek toponym Herakls Monoikos (which attests the existence of the cult of Heracles in this area), whereas Nice originates from the Greek toponym Nkaia, meaning victorious. Having exercised a better preserved influence in the Midi dialects, especially in Provenal, the Greek language left many traces in the French vocabulary, some of them latinized, like the verb blasphemen, in Latin blapshemare, from which the French verb blmer derived. Another example would be the term fantme, originating from the Greek phantsma, as well as the adjectiv biais, derived from the Greek term epikrsios (inclined)6. 4. The Celtic legacy The Gauls arrived during the 5th century BC on the territory to which they would be the first to give a name, preserved even after the Roman
3

W.v. WARTBURG, Evolution et structure de la langue franaise, A. Francke S.A.Berne, Bern, 1962, p. 15

4 5

Ibidem, p. 16 Ibidem 6 Ibidem, p. 20

conquest: Gaul.

Among the essential elements of the linguistic Celtic

heritage, best conserved in the French local dialects7, we may identify toponyms such as Lyon < Lugdunum, Verdun < Virodunum, which illustrate a certain recurrence in the toponymical sphere of the suffix dunon (Latinized as dunum and serving as a root for the English town) that signified hill or fortification. We cannot omit toponyms resulted, in a Latinized form, from the names of the Celtic tribes who inhabited them: Paris < Lutetia Parisiorum (perhaps the most famous example in this sense), Nantes < Portum Namnetum (inhabited by the Namnet tribe)8. We may also mention that a series of terms related to family life, environment and domestic activities (especially agricultural) are of Celtic origin. We shall further analyze two pairs of terms of Celtic origin, which encountered a spectacular evolution: baccalaurat, bachelier, and respectively captif, chtif. The word bachelier represents a suffixed form of the old bacheler (attested during the 11th century). The latter originates from the Vulgar Latin form baccalarius, attested in the 9th century, derived from the Gaelic term baccalaria, meaning small property. Baccalarius came therefore to define a small owner of inferior position in the medieval hierarchy, also having the secondary meaning of single (preserved in the case of the English word bachelor), given the financial and social status insufficiently developed yet, incompatible with the status of a married person. During the 12th century, the word receives the general meaning of young and brave man, while four centuries later, it would evolve in the form bachelier, designating the graduate of a faculty. Strongly connected to this reality, the term baccalaurat, derived in the 17th century from the medieval relatinized form baccalaureatus of the word baccalarius, designated all the students of the French universities. The laurel was the symbol of success, so that the French students of the time pretended that the term came from the Latin structure baca larius (laurel fruit, in a rough translation). Consequently, by the manipulation of a false etymology, the term was restored in 1680 and francised as baccalaurat, coming to designate later on (then and now) the secondary studies graduation certificate9. As far as the two terms captif and chtif are
7 8

Ibidem, p. 25 http://www.culture-generale.fr/geographie/223-toponymie-origine-des-noms-des-villes-francaises-22, site consulted on 9. 04. 2009 9 Laurence HLIX, Lpreuve du vocabulaire dancien franais, Fiches de smantique Editions du Temps, Paris, 1999, pp. 27-30

concerned, they share, despite their actual completely distinct semantic values, the same provenance in the Old French word chaitif10. This term evolved from the Vulgar Latin form cactivum, which presents a double etymology: Latin by the Latin adjective captivum, based on the participle captum of the verb capere, and Celtic by the noun cactos (we should mention the existence of the Irish cacht and the Briton caez, both having the meaning of servant). Its etymologic, primary sense, still preserved in the term captif, was that of captive, prisoner. Subsequently, throughout the Middle Age, the term received, in court language, the secondary sense of lover kept by his woman, whereas in the ecclesiastic language it achieved the meaning of mean, doomed. In turn, the additional connotation of physical weakness is directly related to the bad treatment applied to prisoners in medieval prisons and is conserved at present in the term chtif. 5. Romanization and relatinization identity elements of the French language The Roman conquest of Gaul took place subsequent to the war described in detail by its main artisan, Caius Iulius Caesar, in his work De bello gallico, between 58 and 51 BC. It gave birth to an essential stage in the history of this territory fragmented until then by tribal rivalries and migrations, which was now to know a unitary political organization and security that unfortunately would not last for long11. Key-element of the integration process of the conquered, generically named romanization, the latinization of the province determined the very fundamental Romanic character of what was to become the French language. Jacqueline Picoche and Christiano-Marchello-Nizia show that the main vocabulary of the French language is articulated almost entirely on the Gallo-Roman fond, to which was added the relatinization process in the Middle Age by the calques of savant vocabulary on written Latin12. These processes are illustrated in the following analysis of the semantic and morphological evolution of terms of Latin origin. Chose and rien represent two of the oldest French words, both initially having somewhat general and vague significations. Chose derived from the Latin causa, with the initial sense

10 11

Ibidem, pp. 38-40 W.v. WARTBURG, Evolution et structure de la langue franaise, A. Francke S.A.Berne, Bern, 1962, p. 31 12 Jacqueline PICOCHE, Christiane MARCHELLO-NIZIA, Histoire de la langue franaise, Nathan, Paris, 1998, p. 324

of reason, jurisdictional context, situation or case13. In Vulgar Latin, causa acquires the denotation of thing, substituting the noun res14 and appearing in Old French as cosa in the first written text in French - Les serments de Strasbourg (The Strasbourg oaths) (842)15. Rien (in its old form riens) originates from the Latin res and had a relatively general meaning: thing, matter, good, process, reason. If throughout the following centuries the two terms were semantically concurrent, they become more clearly opposed in the morphosyntactic field. Thus, cosa remains exclusively a noun, whereas riens evolves towards the categories of adverb (with the sense of in any respect) and indefinite pronoun (denoting something, anything), subsequently specializing in hypothetical and superlative structures, less and less semantically determined. Having changed its genre from feminine to masculine, it gradually acquires a dominantly negative context usage and is accompanied by the negative adverb ne, until the 16th century, when it achieves an exclusively negative value16, preserved nowadays as we very well know. The second pair of terms, dextre-sinistre, derives from the Latin couple dexter-sinister (the ter suffix marks the binary opposition in Latin) transformed in Old French into the forms destre-senestre, primarily with a spatial denotation: left-right. But in Latin this spatial sense is doubled by a metaphorical, abstract one: dexter has a positive connotation, sinister had a negative one17. The distinction appears as a consequence of the practice of the GreekRoman rite of augurs that predicted the future according to the direction in which the birds used in this ritual flew. In fact, the collective mental itself associates right with the principles of positivism, solar, masculine, whilst left is related to the idea of evil, nocturne. The adjective in the feminine genre dextra, initially collocated to the noun manus, became itself a noun after manus fell out of usage, which resulted in the new noun dextra, designating the right hand. It did not have the same abstract connotations in French as in Latin, although a certain symbolical opposition right-left was observed in the medieval Christian iconography. After the relatinization of the French language, destre evolved into its actual form dextre, nowadays used exclusively in the field of Heraldic or Zoology, but we may take notice of the persistence of the term dextrit (practical manual ability). In turn, senestre transformed into sinistre, but kept an exclusively metaphorical semantic
13

Auguste SCHELER, Dictionnaire dtymologie franaise daprs les rsultats de la science moderne, , Imprimerie de Labrour et Mertens, Paris, 1862, p.76 14 Ibidem 15 Laurence HLIX, Lpreuve du vocabulaire dancien franais, Fiches de smantique Editions du Temps, Paris, 1999, p. 53 16 Ibidem, p.54 17 Ibidem, p. 79

value, synonym to lugubrious. In order to denote the spatial sense, only the terms gauche, derived from the verb gaucher, originating from the Germanic verb guenchir (meaning to make a detour, thus we may assume that the etymological sense of this origin verb converges somehow with the idea of detour from the moral, right way) and respectively droit, deriving from the Latin directum, which in medieval French and up to the 16th century, signified the right moral18. 6. Germanic etymologies : the Franc superstrate and the Norman invasion The 4th - 5th centuries BC represented a time of intense migrations and invasions of the Gaul by Germanic populations, forced to abandon their former territories as a result of the Hun invasion. Among them, the Saxons subsequently determined, by the invasion of the Britannic Isles, the movement of the Briton populations towards the region that bore the Celtic name of Aremorica, today named Bretagne19. They were followed by the Francs led by King Clovis who occupied Gaul in 486, creating thus the linguistic frontier between the germanophone and the francophone territories, a line that crosses Belgium from East to West. Needless to say, it was this Franc conquest that had a special relevance in the crystallization of the French language. The Franc superstate is visible in numerous terms belonging to military and administrative vocabulary, but also to the basic vocabulary20: blesser< bletjan (to wound), navrer< nafarra (the etimological meaning was to sting, the actual one to dissapoint ), meurtir<murdrir (10th century form) <murthrjan (to commit murder)21, garder<wardn22 (to overlook), guerrir<warjan23 (to heal), marchal<marskalk24 (leader of cavalry), baron< baro (high-rank official, at present in the argotic language it means sponsor, supporter)25. But beyond these examples, the Germanic adjective frank, latinized in the 3rd century as francus, is the very etymon of the name of the French people and country. It is related to two realities: an ethnical one (representing the name of the Franc people) and a juridical one denoting the free man status, for after the Franc invasion, they appear to be a free and autonomous people, the ethnical value of
18 19

Ibidem, p.80 W.v. WARTBURG, Evolution et structure de la langue franaise, A. Francke S.A.Berne, Bern, 1962, pp.55-56 20 Jacqueline Picoche, Christiane Marchello-Nizia, Histoire de la langue franaise, Nathan, Paris, 1998, p.324 21 Laurence Hlix, Lpreuve du vocabulaire dancien franais, Fiches de smantique Editions du Temps, Paris, 1999, pp.35-38 22 Auguste Scheler, Dictionnaire dtymologie franaise daprs les rsultats de la science moderne, , Imprimerie de Labrour et Mertens, Paris, 1862, p.152 23 Ibidem, p. 181 24 W.v. WARTBURG, Evolution et structure de la langue franaise, A. Francke S.A.Berne, Bern, 1962, p.57 25 Laurence Hlix, Lpreuve du vocabulaire dancien franais, Fiches de smantique Editions du Temps, Paris, 1999, p.30

francus giving away before this semen of free man, Germanic or non-Germanic. This is where the term franchisse derived from, having the initial sense of freedom and nobility, nowadays denoting exemption from taxes26. The Norman invasion took place around the 9th-10th centuries and brought its contribution to toponymy and especially to the marine vocabulary27: trave<stafn (groyne), bitte<bita (bollard). However, the term that shall be further analyzed is related to spiritual life. The etymological dictionary of August Scheler describes the term bigot as originally being an offensive word initially applied to Normans. According to a French chronicle, a certain duke Rollon refused to kiss the feet of King Charles saying in English ne se bi god (never by God)28. This anecdote, observes Diez, could have been made up to explain the term and, despite its actual verisimilitude, the author does not accept the etymon bi god as, according to the permutation laws, the final d could not have rebecome t but should have transformed into i. Other authors see bigot as a form that evolved from the Italian bigotto, originating from the etymons beguine or beguttae, names of religious sects, aspiring to a life of devotion to God and wearing the grey clothes of the Franciscan monks. On the other hand, Diez states that the origin of the term could as well be correlated to the Spanish expression hombre de bigote (moustache), which means person of strong, harsh character. 7. Oriental interactions and etymologies The contacts between Mediterranean Europe and the oriental world, especially Arabs, began after their entering the Mediterranean Basin, around the 7th century29. The commercial relations these two spaces shared, the crusades, the Maury domination in Spain, the foundation of the Arab universities of Toledo, Seville, Grenada and Cordoba, the journeys of Europeans in the East, as well as the dissemination of the oriental culture and knowledge by means of Mathematics, Medicine and Astronomy books, an entire series of factors favored the development of West-East interactions30. Linguistically, these interactions left visible marks on the French vocabulary, as it will be seen in the analysis of the following terms.

26 27

Ibidem, p.120 Jacqueline Picoche, Christiane Marchello-Nizia, Histoire de la langue franaise, Nathan, Paris, 1998, p.324 28 Auguste Scheler, Dictionnaire dtymologie franaise daprs les rsultats de la science moderne, , Imprimerie de Labrour et Mertens, Paris, 1862, p.49 29 W.v. WARTBURG, Evolution et structure de la langue franaise, A. Francke S.A.Berne, Bern, 1962, p. 76 30 L.Marcel Devic, Dictionnaire etymologique des mots francais dorigine orientale (arabe, persan, turc, hebreu, malais), Imprimerie Nationale, Paris, 1876, p.5

The term cafard is the equivalent of the Spanish and Portuguese cafre, signifying tough, cruel, and originating from the Arab term kafir (unfaithful, delinquent)31. The author Marcel Devic states that French term would have the same origin either under the influence of the plural forms kifr, kouffar,kafara or by adding the pejorative morpheme - ard. In the same way, the noun cimeterre, as well as the Spanish and Portuguese cimitarra, the Italian schimitarra and the Romanian cimitir have the same origin in the Persian word chimchr, and share of course the same meaning (cemetery)32. Moreover, the noun gnie (whose old form was djin) is of Arab origin33, where the collective noun djin designates the multitude of demons, supernatural beings, as opposed to human beings. The term douane (customs house), like the Spanish aduana and the Italian dogana, evolved from the Arab term of Persian origin doun, which denoted the registry book, and later on the place where the civil servants that detained the registry books gathered, the State Council, the assembly room, but also the customs house34. The nouns checs and chec also have a Persian origin. The name of the chess game originates from the alteration a echh, which means the king, formed of the definite article ech and the Persian noun chah (the king). The player who checkmates the other king warns his mate by saying ech chah (the king). The French expression chec et mat also is an alteration of the Arab expression ech-chahmat (the king is dead)35. Furthermore, the term golgotha, existing in French, is explained by Greek evangelists as a derivation from , the place of the skull, either because of its aspect, or because that certain place was filled with skulls of punished people36. Actually, the term originates from the Caldean word goulgaltha, in Hebrew goulgoleth (skull). In the same way, the proper noun Pques (Easter) derives from the latinized form pascha the Hebrew pesha that had the primary sense of Passover, for the Jewish Easter was celebrated in remembrance of the escape from Egypt37. 8. The French Revolution and the rediscovery of classic etymons Beyond its political, social and economic effects, The Great French Revolution of 1789 also had consequences of linguistic order. This was possible especially by means of the policy regarding the national uniformity of the language and the abolition of regional linguistic
31 32

Ibidem, p.74 Ibidem, p.96 33 Ibidem, p.103 34 Ibidem, p.104 35 Ibidem, p. 107 36 Ibidem, p.147 37 Ibidem, p.138

particularities, which was nothing but an instance of the inequality specific of the Old Regime in the ideological system of the Revolution. The influence exercised by its strongly politized discourse over the French language is visible in the lexical field. For instance, a series of neologisms appeared in this context impregnated with party spirit, propaganda, the idea of opposition, the fear of reaction and counter-revolution. They were formed by the addition of neologic affixes, of the type isme, -iste (for the designation of the ideological orientation): robespierrisme, propagandisme, dantoniste, or the prefixes anti- , in-, d -, contre -, non-, ex- , which marked the opposition or the contrast: antirpublicain, nonpatriote, contre-rvolution, ex-prtre, dnationaliser, inviolable38. But a large number of the elements used to create new terms that should reflect the new political realities are of Greek and Latin origin, an aspect meant to support even more arduously the propagandistic purposes, by a veneration and claim of a glorious past (and above all, a republican one too) of the ancient European civilization. In this way, new words such as lse-nation, lse-rvolution, calqued on lse-majest, clubocratie, calotinocratie, calqued on aristocratie, or derivations with the suffix icide, with remarkable stylistic effects: rpublicides, nationicides, liberticides. What is more, the tendency to returning to the ancient past was notable even in onomastics, as more and more often, names with a classical-mythological resonance like Achilles, Brutus, Marius, were preferred to regular French names39. 9. Colonialism and industrial revolution The 19th century marked what we generically name the industrial revolution and, strongly connected to it, the colonial expansion. France represented one of the great colonial powers and firmly affirmed its status throughout this century, extending its domination especially over North Africa. On their return, the soldiers present in these territories brought along on European land numerous terms of African origin, rapidly adopted by the masses as well as by the elites: cest kif-kif (its the same), maboul (crazy), gourbi (rudimentary hut), toubib (doctor), razzia (term which denoted the invasions of other tribes in the neighbouring territories, and entered the Police vocabulary)40. Furthermore, as Great Britain represented the most important actor in the industrial revolution phenomenon, it is natural that through the implant of technological innovations, the English language should exercise a considerable influence on French, especially with regard to the technical terminology
38 39

W.v. WARTBURG, Evolution et structure de la langue franaise, A. Francke S.A.Berne, Bern, 1962, p. 214 Ibidem, p.215 40 Ibidem, p.234

adopted: wagon, tunnel, express, ticket, water-closet, in addition to which we may mention terms belonging to the alimentation field like: steak, sandwich, cherry-brandy, cocktail, soda-water41.

41

Ibidem, pp.233-234

Bibliography
L.Marcel DEVIC, Dictionnaire etymologique des mots francais dorigine orientale (arabe, persan, turc, hebreu, malais), Imprimerie Nationale, Paris, 1876 Laurence HLIX, Lpreuve du vocabulaire dancien franais, Fiches de smantique Editions du Temps, Paris, 1999 Yakov MALKIEL, Etymology, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1993 Jacqueline PICOCHE, Christiane MARCHELLO-NIZIA, Histoire de la langue franaise, Nathan, Paris, 1998 Auguste SCHELER, Dictionnaire dtymologie franaise daprs les rsultats de la science moderne, , Imprimerie de Labrour et Mertens, Paris, 1862 W.v. WARTBURG, Evolution et structure de la langue franaise, A. Francke S.A.Berne, Bern, 1962