If no one should ignore that “Paris was not built in a day”, then no one would doubt that Rome was either. The Frenchization of this proverb of Latin origin shows how much our language could not be built alone. All those who falsified French, Greek, Frankish, or Latin are the most famous. The peoples who spoke them introduced them by invading us or passing through the area. The Franks, for example, gave us the Frankish (Germanic language) adjective “franc,” meaning “free,” found in the word “French.” But the story does not end here. We ourselves have brought many terms from our campaigns to enrich the French language and fill in its gaps.
The development of trade contributed to it. “Patchouli,” for example, is a word “originating on the east coast of India, where it was probably borrowed by French colonists,” shows; French treasure. It derives from Tamil, just as “Jerusalem” derives from the Frenchization of the name of the Brazilian Tupinambas tribe. They were discovered by explorer Samuel de Champlain in 1605.
“Tongues approach each other, smell each other, touch each other and sometimes cross each other”write Eric Orsenna and Bernard Cerkiglini Immigrant words (Share). The words that we use on a daily basis have become so familiar to us that we no longer know from which country, which culture, which language they come from.
Can you find the foreign origins of these French words? Thanks to this test, Le Figaro invites you to reopen your etymology books. Will you receive without guilt?
Source: Le Figaro
