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“Cabaret”, “joke”… Five French words that we owe to Dutch

2023-03-09T07:22:26.525Z


French was not made in a day. Many words have appeared at different times in history and have come from several languages. Do you know the ones that the Dutch passed on to us?


The great navigators and illustrious Dutch artists are more familiar to us than their language.

And yet, Willem Janszoon, the first European to have observed the Australian coasts, like Vermeer in his time, were Dutch speakers.

An idiom from the West Germanic group attached to Low German, Dutch (derived from "Néerlande", Frenchified form of "Nederland", "Netherlands") is the official language of the Netherlands, also spoken in part of Belgium and which in this case is called Flemish.

To discover

  • Crosswords, arrow words, 7 Letters... Free to play anywhere, anytime with the Le Figaro Games app

As explained by Madeleine Van Strien-Chardonneau and Marie-Christine Kok Escalle in

Le français aux Pays-Bas

, act of the study day organized on December 11, 2009 at the University of Leiden, it was customary to speak the language of Molière in certain categories of the northern population of the Netherlands, from the 16th to the 19th century.

Language of social distinction for the elites, language of religious distinction for French-speaking Protestant refugees and language of professional distinction for scholars and merchants, French has influenced Dutch.

The converse is no less true.

And this, under the influence of maritime trade between the two countries during the Middle Ages, in particular.

As early as the 12th century, for example, our lexicon adopted the term 'sea bass', from the Middle Dutch 'baerse' (derived from 'borstel', 'hair, brush'), to designate the fish with dorsal fins made of hard spines.

Similarly, around 1350, a crewman on board a ship is said to be a “sailor” (from the Dutch “mattenoot”, “bedfellow”).

But do you know these other words that we owe to the language of the country of Erasmus?

Cabaret

Both a small drinking establishment and an establishment where, while consuming, customers attend variety shows, as the French Academy reminds us, “caberet” comes from the Middle Dutch “caberet”.

Appeared in France in the 13th century, it finds its origin in what the inhabitants of the Netherlands use to speak of a cheap inn or restaurant.

Note that “caberet” is itself a derivative of the old Picard “camberete”, which means “small room”.

Model

Qualifying by definition a figure that represents the human body, executed in various materials and intended for different uses, and later a human form that is dressed to present clothes in stores in particular, the word "mannequin" was born in the 15th century in France.

Originally used in northern France to qualify a figurine, it comes from the Dutch "mannekijn" ("little man").

Read also "Menno", "Plörre"... Do you know these German Gallicisms?

Book

In 1459, the writer Jacques Milet, in

Romania

, said of an old book which is made little of, that it was a "boucquain".

It is in this pejorative meaning that the word, derived from “bœckijn”, diminutive of “bœc” (“book”), appeared in French in the 15th century.

Today, we also use "book" to refer to an old book that has stood the test of time.

Grapefruit

Used to describe the large, acid-tasting fruit from the Citrus paradisi tree, the “grapefruit” became internationally known from the second half of the 17th century.

In 1693, returning from Batavia (current Jakarta), then headquarters of the Dutch East India Company, the English captain Shaddock introduced it to Barbados and contributed to the fame of the fruit under the name of “shaddock”.

Dutch sailors continue to call it "pompelmoes", derived from the Dutch "pompel" ("big, swollen") and "limoes" ("lemon").

We observe the term as early as 1665 in

The Embassy of the Eastern Company of the United Provinces to the Emperor of China

, a text translated into French by Jean Le Carpentier.

Joke

As can be read in the

Trésor de la langue française

, it has only been used since the 19th century in the sense of “joke”.

But the word "joke" is known to the French from around 1720.

He then points to a flexible pouch in which smokers put the tobacco they were carrying.

A very useful object for French navigators on a trip who, after seeing the “balg” (“sheath, envelope” and “skin from which an animal is stripped”) of their Dutch counterparts, adopted it.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2023-03-09

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