[Originally posted on 03/26/14 on the Duolingo French for English speakers forum by PERCE_NEIGE]
If you begin French or you don’t speak this language, maybe you know more French words that you may think… A lot of English words are in reality from French.
See this example, you always through “madam” was an English word?
“Madam” comes from the french “Madame” that is in reality “ma dame” (=my lady)
“Sire” is from the French “sire”, that is the word by which French call their king. The word “sire” also gave “sieur” (but this word no longer exist in modern French) and monsieur ( mon sieur= my lord)
“peasant” is a deformation of the French “paysan” (countryman), wich come from the word “pays” (country in modern French, and area in old French)
“Money” is the French word “monnaie”.(currency, coins)
“Army” is the French word “armée” (army), from the word “arme” (meaning weapon). You’ll notice than the final “é” in French is often converted in “y” when the word pass from French to English. A lot of word ending with “y” in English are from French origin. ex: liberty from liberté, chastety from chasteté, etc…
“Orange” is from the French “orange” (orange: fruit and name of the colour given by the fruit), this French word comes from the Arabic “narandj”.
“Chamber” from the French “chambre” (room). You’ll notice that when you have a word ending with in French with “bre”, “tre”, etc. It becomes “ber” “ter” in English. Ex: theater, etc.
“Car” from the French “char” ( chariot) “Chariot” from the French “chariot. (cart, trolley) “Chivalry” from the French “chevalerie”, from “cheval” that mean “horse” and the French suffix “erie”. Chevalier = knight.
There’s a lot. I could update this list again if you’re interested.
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In short, Norman Conquest.
EDIT: To add, here’s an episode of the History of the English Language about this period, if anyone wants to understand the French influence on English to a deeper level. (Great series btw) This episode is titled, “English Goes Underground”.
Yes, and it’s one of the reasons why I love to study English, I see links with my language, and the old French too, it’s really interesting, I guess it’s the same than for English speakers who learn French, they recognize some links, it’s a shame the links between the 2 languages are so under-estimate by people in general. When an English speaker want to learn French and says “it’s too difficult”, I tell him, hey, you already know more French that you think. All the word ending by “-tion” are the same and all the word ending with “ty” in English are the same with “té” in French, etc…
Alicia, if you have some articles or some discussion, feel free to post them on my page, I’m very interested in linguistics, but I’m only an amateur.
Definitely. What type of things do you like? I have a lot of language things saved on my Pinterest. http://www.pinterest.com/aliciaftw/
Yes! and maybe on lingo too, a lot of people are interested with linguistics here! Do you know some interesting and funny sites to learn linguistics when you are only an amateur?
… and in return, we gave you “le weekend”, “le shampooing” (which we borrowed from Hindi), and “le binge drinking” (though apparently this is now “beuverie express”).
…aaaaaand the list you all have been waiting for can be astonishingly seen here. Have fun with it =)
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Just click edit at the bottom of the discussion (right above the comments) and on the top left corner change it to the correct discussion.
En español también hay muchas palabras del francés, porque ambos son lenguas romances (lenguas románicas).
“Madame” = madam. “Sire” = sir (título honorífico). “Paysan” = paisano. “Monnaie” = moneda. “Armée” = armada. “Arme” = arma. “Orange” = naranja, anaranjado. Théâtre = teatro. “Char” = coche (carro). “Chariot” = carretilla, carro. “Chevalerie” = caballero. “Cheval” = caballo.
Yes, Spanish and French are like two sisters. There’s also “madam” in Spanish? It’s really meaningful only in French. mi-señora, I know “dama” also exist in Spanish, but it’s rather used for card games? Money is from monnaie, not from moneda, even if “moneda” is closer from the its latin origin “moneta”. Naranja is closer than orange from the genuine arabic, naranj.
I remember reading about the origins of the American word ammo, that it was due to one of the world wars fighting alongside the French and they would say something like don’t forget the supplies in French which was La munitions and they were usually referring to bullets so it became ammunition or just ammo for short.
Yes “pioneer” is “pionnier” in French. Etymology of the French “pionnier”. Latin pedonis (=pedestrian) — old French péon/péonier — modern French pionnier. It came from pedestrian, because it was originally an infantry soldier, on foot. “Pionnier” became “pionero” in Spanish) http://etimologias.dechile.net/?pionero But I have no historical clue why this French word was adopted in Spanish, if someone knows… Maybe a war between France and Spain? Scout is from the old French escoute (Modern French: écoute) and it means “to listen”.
There’s a lot more than 10, Alicia could give a better answer than I could, but there’s at the minimum 3/10 words in English that are French words passed in English (estimation: 33%). Some etymology dictionnary call them word form latin root, but there’s no latin root in English, except the scientific or legal word for instance that have been directly taken from Latin to English.
If you think about it, probably half of the English language is actually of English origin. Even the word “shoe” has Germanic roots. After all, the United States is made up of various people who traveled here. My family is definitely not originated in America – there were many who came from England, France, and Germany.
It’s normal for the word “shoes” to have Germanic roots, as English is belongs to the Germanic languages family. But there’s a lot of borrowed words in every language, from Arabic, etc, Although English is original, I say sometimes he has 2 mothers.
Wow, thanks for the info. This language now seems more than interesting to me since my final objective is migrate to another country.
I would like Canada since is a two languages country but I would be happy with any one, my main idea is give a better future to my daughter and I think that in my country that’s very difficult to do.
Duolinguists 