Lively story of living words(Histoire vive des mots vivants)

Alina-Carmen Ciolcă

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 ἐτυμολογία, composed of ἔτυμος, etymos (true,

veritable) and λόγος, 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 française, Jacqueline Picoche and Christiane Marcello-

Nizia simply define it as ˝prehistory of language˝1, 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,

1 Jacqueline PICOCHE, Christiane MARCHELLO-NIZIA Histoire de la langue française, Nathan, Paris, p. 3232 Yakov MALKIEL, Etymology, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1993, p. 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-Comté, 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 Provençal 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 “left”5.

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 Massalía (latinized as Massília), Monaco is the actual form of the

Greek toponym Heraklēs Monoikos (which attests the existence of the cult of Heracles in

this area), whereas Nice originates from the Greek toponym Níkaia, meaning ˝victorious˝.

Having exercised a better preserved influence in the Midi dialects, especially in

Provençal, the Greek language left many traces in the French

vocabulary, some of them latinized, like the verb blasphemeín, in Latin

blapshemare, from which the French verb blâmer derived. Another example would be the

term fantôme, originating from the Greek phantásma, as well as the adjectiv biais, derived

from the Greek term epikársios (inclined)6.

4. The Celtic legacy

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

4 Ibidem, p. 16 5 Ibidem6 Ibidem, p. 20

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

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: baccalauréat, bachelier, and respectively

captif, chétif. 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 baccalauréat, 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 baccalauréat, coming to

7 Ibidem, p. 258 http://www.culture-generale.fr/geographie/223-toponymie-origine-des-noms-des-villes-francaises-22, site consulted on 9. 04. 2009

designate later on (then and now) the secondary studies graduation certificate9. As far as

the two terms captif and chétif are 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 chétif.

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.

9 Laurence HÉLIX, L’épreuve du vocabulaire d’ancien français, Fiches de sémantique Editions du Temps, Paris, 1999, pp. 27-3010 Ibidem, pp. 38-4011 W.v. WARTBURG, Evolution et structure de la langue française, A. Francke S.A.Berne, Bern, 1962, p. 3112 Jacqueline PICOCHE, Christiane MARCHELLO-NIZIA, Histoire de la langue française, Nathan, Paris, 1998, p. 324

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 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 morpho-syntactic 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 Greek-Roman 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

13 Auguste SCHELER, Dictionnaire d’étymologie française d’après les résultats de la science moderne, , Imprimerie de Labrour et Mertens, Paris, 1862, p.7614 Ibidem15 Laurence HÉLIX, L’épreuve du vocabulaire d’ancien français, Fiches de sémantique Editions du Temps, Paris, 1999, p. 5316 Ibidem, p.5417 Ibidem, p. 79

Zoology, but we may take notice of the persistence of the term dextérité (practical manual

ability). In turn, senestre transformed into sinistre, but kept an exclusively metaphorical

semantic 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 moral˝18.

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<wardôn22 (to overlook), guerrir<warjan23 (to heal),

maréchal<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

18 Ibidem, p.8019 W.v. WARTBURG, Evolution et structure de la langue française, A. Francke S.A.Berne, Bern, 1962, pp.55-5620 Jacqueline Picoche, Christiane Marchello-Nizia, Histoire de la langue française, Nathan, Paris, 1998, p.32421 Laurence Hélix, L’épreuve du vocabulaire d’ancien français, Fiches de sémantique Editions du Temps, Paris, 1999, pp.35-3822 Auguste Scheler, Dictionnaire d’étymologie française d’après les résultats de la science moderne, , Imprimerie de Labrour et Mertens, Paris, 1862, p.15223 Ibidem, p. 18124 W.v. WARTBURG, Evolution et structure de la langue française, A. Francke S.A.Berne, Bern, 1962, p.5725 Laurence Hélix, L’épreuve du vocabulaire d’ancien français, Fiches de sémantique Editions du Temps, Paris, 1999, p.30

(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 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: étrave<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

26 Ibidem, p.12027 Jacqueline Picoche, Christiane Marchello-Nizia, Histoire de la langue française, Nathan, Paris, 1998, p.32428 Auguste Scheler, Dictionnaire d’étymologie française d’après les résultats de la science moderne, , Imprimerie de Labrour et Mertens, Paris, 1862, p.4929 W.v. WARTBURG, Evolution et structure de la langue française, A. Francke S.A.Berne, Bern, 1962, p. 7630 L.Marcel Devic, Dictionnaire etymologique des mots francais d’origine orientale (arabe, persan, turc, hebreu, malais), Imprimerie Nationale, Paris, 1876, p.5

interactions left visible marks on the French vocabulary, as it will be seen in the analysis

of the following terms.

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 kifār, 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 chimchīr, and share of course the same meaning (cemetery)32. Moreover, the

noun génie (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 dīouān, 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 échecs and échec

also have a Persian origin. The name of the chess game originates from the alteration a

echāh, 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 échec et mat also is an alteration of the Arab

expression ech-chah-mat (the king is dead)35. Furthermore, the term golgotha, existing in

French, is explained by Greek evangelists as a derivation from γολγοθά, 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 Pâques (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

31 Ibidem, p.7432 Ibidem, p.9633 Ibidem, p.10334 Ibidem, p.10435 Ibidem, p. 10736Ibidem, p.147 37Ibidem, p.138

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 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-, dé -, contre -, non-, ex- , which marked the opposition or the contrast:

antirépublicain, non-patriote, contre-révolution, ex-prêtre, dénationaliser, 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 lèse-nation, lèse-révolution, calqued on lèse-majesté, clubocratie,

calotinocratie, calqued on aristocratie, or derivations with the suffix – icide, with

remarkable stylistic effects: républicides, 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: c’est kif-kif (it’s 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

38 W.v. WARTBURG, Evolution et structure de la langue française, A. Francke S.A.Berne, Bern, 1962, p. 21439 Ibidem, p.21540 Ibidem, p.234

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 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 d’origine orientale (arabe, persan, turc, hebreu, malais), Imprimerie Nationale, Paris, 1876

Laurence HÉLIX, L’épreuve du vocabulaire d’ancien français, Fiches de sémantique Editions du Temps, Paris, 1999

Yakov MALKIEL, Etymology, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1993

Jacqueline PICOCHE, Christiane MARCHELLO-NIZIA, Histoire de la langue française, Nathan, Paris, 1998

Auguste SCHELER, Dictionnaire d’étymologie française d’après les résultats de la science moderne, , Imprimerie de Labrour et Mertens, Paris, 1862

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