A legend says that around 1130, a miracle took place in Somerset, in the southwest of England.
A mute man would have started speaking in English... and in French at the same time!
This story would be anecdotal if it did not perfectly illustrate the ancestral links between our two languages.
Since the victory of William the Conqueror at Hastings, which led to the installation of the Normans in England, French and English have been closely linked.
Just look at the words that gave rise to theirs.
"The French dialect of Normandy, imported by conquerors who did not hide their contempt for the idiom of the conquered, thus became the language of power and, soon, that of prestige"
, writes Marie Treps, linguist and semiologist in
Migratory Words.
The tribulations of French in Europe
(Seuil, 2009).
False expressions and unusual locutions
These
"English devils"
, as the linguist affectionately calls them, have disguised some of our expressions with impunity.
“Faux pas”
thus became
fox paws
, literally...
“fox paws”
!
Thank you very much
turned into a
mercy bucket,
that is to say...
“bucket of bitterness”
.
As for the formula
"immediately"
, it has become
toot sweet
, which means word for word...
"sweet horn" .
.
Not to mention the expressions they formulate in French, which we French-speakers hardly understand at all.
When an Englishman wishes to change the subject, he will strangely say:
“about boots”
.
Let's not forget these expressions, as funny as they are unusual, pronounced in French, which they invent everywhere.
The result is as comic as it is unusual.
What to understand in the sentence:
"It's magnificent but it's not war"
?
French words in kitchens since... the Middle Ages
Our two countries have traded words and expressions for centuries, which we borrow from each other.
As early as 1137, English took over from French the words
tresor
, or
canceler
for
“chancellor”
,
prisun
for
“prison”
and
“justice”
, notes the author.
Even today, certain everyday terms are directly borrowed from medieval Norman:
vegetables
,
"vegetables"
in English, comes from the old French
vegetable
, or
"living"
,
flesh,
from the French
chaere
or
curtain
,
"curtain" .
, from Old French
curtine
.
The vocabulary of the kitchen is colored by our language.
Marie Treps notes that in the Middle Ages, animals were designated by their Anglo-Saxon name, then, once cooked and served at the table of the Norman lord, accompanied by their French equivalent.
This is how
sheep
, the sheep grazing on the grasslands, became
mutton
.
Ox,
the living ox, transmuted into
beaf
, and
pig
,
"pig"
, transmuted into
pork
.
