Well, I guess this is what I get for being late to the thread -- fab's Cooking/Cuisine topic was already closed by the time I read through it. But I wanted to put in my two cents:
It is true that some obviously French borrowings into English have a sort of hoity-toity, snobby connotation. Couture and coiffure and anything haute come to mind. However, not all of them do -- well, in fact there are plenty of English words of French derivation that we don't even recognize as being originally French!
Cuisine is sort of on the borderline -- it's common enough in English that it doesn't have most of that nose-in-the-air sense anymore, and yet, as some people have pointed out, still retains a little bit of elegance -- enough to make restauranteurs still choose it for their signs.
(Hey, there's an excellent example of the degrees of assimilation some words experience -- restaurant is so common in English that we never think of it as a French word at all -- except when we're trying to spell it -- while restauranteur is a little more self-conscious of its origins. I would say that it's because of the spelling (-eur) and the pronunciation, but the word entrepreneur retains both the French spelling and pronunciation too, and yet never gets thought of as snobby. Go figure! There are no rules, sometimes....)
Anyway, moving on to the point, I would venture to say that I tend to think of cuisine as having a slightly different connotation than cooking. Cuisine seems to encompass the totality of a type of cooking -- all of the foods in the Chinese repertoire, for instance, or Mexican cookery as a whole. It has an added layer of meaning to mere cooking or cookery.
greg in noord-frankrijk
Re: Fancy Frenchified Words ... and other borrowings
Uriel wrote:
Hey, there's an excellent example of the degrees of assimilation some words experience -- restaurant is so common in English that we never think of it as a French word at all -- except when we're trying to spell it -- while restauranteur is a little more self-conscious of its origins. I would say that it's because of the spelling (-eur) and the pronunciation, but the word entrepreneur retains both the French spelling and pronunciation too, and yet never gets thought of as snobby. Go figure! There are no rules, sometimes....
It's a fascinating point you raised, Uriel. Now we could try a sort of game : native Anglophones (and why not non-natives too to see if discrepancies pop up) would rate on a 1-2-3-4-5 scale how assimilated an <eur>-ending French word seems to them — 1 being totally French and 5 totally English. Here's a list :
It is true that some obviously French borrowings into English have a sort of hoity-toity, snobby connotation. Couture and coiffure and anything haute come to mind. However, not all of them do -- well, in fact there are plenty of English words of French derivation that we don't even recognize as being originally French!
It seems that French loan-words in English seem less 'foreign' the more they are used, to the point that most people wouldn't notice them. For example, apparently words like 'role' and 'hotel' were often seen as overly foreign and unnecessary when they were first introduced (because suitable 'English' words for these concepts already existed), but now they have been completely assimilated.
Uriel wrote:
(Hey, there's an excellent example of the degrees of assimilation some words experience -- restaurant is so common in English that we never think of it as a French word at all -- except when we're trying to spell it -- while restauranteur is a little more self-conscious of its origins. I would say that it's because of the spelling (-eur) and the pronunciation, but the word entrepreneur retains both the French spelling and pronunciation too, and yet never gets thought of as snobby. Go figure! There are no rules, sometimes....)
What I always find interesting about 'restaurant' is that the German 'Restaurant' retains the French pronunciation. Actually, I've noticed that French loan-words in German often tend to retain the French pronunciation if they also retain the French spelling.
Here's what I think about the words on Greg's list:
accoucheur — 1
agent provocateur — 4
amateur — 5
carillonneur — 3 (but I'm biased, because my primary school had a carillon)
chasseur — 1
chauffeur — 1
claqueur — 1
coiffeur — 2
colporteur — 1
connoisseur — 2
danseur — 1
douceur — 2
ecraseur — 1
entrepreneur — 5
flaneur — 1
flâneur —1
friseur — 1 (but if we were doing this for German, it would be a 5)
grandeur — 5
hauteur — 3
jongleur — 1
longueur — 3
masseur — 3
persifleur — 1
poseur — 2
raconteur — 1
railleur — 1
regisseur — 1
régisseur — 1
restaurateur — 2
restauranteur — 2
saboteur — 1
liqueur — 5
tirailleur — 1
voltigeur — 1
voyageur — 3
voyeur — 4
fab
Quote:
connoisseur
What is interesting is that some french-looking words doesn't even exist in French with that spelling. The french word being "connaisseur".
André in Zuid-Afrika
I counted 11 words there which also appear in Afrikaans.
Benjamin [inactive]
fab wrote:
Quote:
connoisseur
What is interesting is that some french-looking words doesn't even exist in French with that spelling. The french word being "connaisseur".
It might have been a typing mistake. I have no idea what 'connoisseur' means either. And actually, I didn't realise that most of those words above could even be used in English.
André in Zuid-Afrika
Connoisseur gets 5 480 000 results on google, compared to 2 560 000 for connaisseur. Connoisseur is the one I know, and the one used in my dictionary, so certainly it's used in South African English (also in Afrikaans).
Pauline
André in Zuid-Afrika wrote:
Connoisseur gets 5 480 000 results on google, compared to 2 560 000 for connaisseur. Connoisseur is the one I know, and the one used in my dictionary, so certainly it's used in South African English (also in Afrikaans).
I've looked up this in my Dictionnary french/english english/french
this words are spelled correctly: in french with ai and in english with oi
Icke
Benjamin wrote:
fab wrote:
Quote:
connoisseur
What is interesting is that some french-looking words doesn't even exist in French with that spelling. The french word being "connaisseur".
It might have been a typing mistake. I have no idea what 'connoisseur' means either. And actually, I didn't realise that most of those words above could even be used in English.
I've just used this word recently since the only English expression I got from my dictionary for 'Kenner' was 'connoisseur'.
But I know what you mean, there are some French words out of these of which I'm also not really sure whether they are really used in German or not.
The English spelling connoisseur is accurate even if its Modern-French counterpart is connaisseur. What's odd is several sources deem connoisseur to have entered English lexicon during the 18th century although its orthography is (by a strange irony ?) clearly Old-French style. However Old-French conisance, conisaunce, conysance (etc) is the ancestor of cognisance as this Middle-English piece shows :
Arwygarus, his owen broþer,
Parseyued þat er any oþer,
& þoughte hit were gret folye
Þere to grede or for to crie.
He tok þe kynges conisaunce,
ffor non scholde perseyue þat chaunce,
An bad his priues euer-ylkon,
Nought so hardy make no mon ;
ffor wyst our folk we were þus trayscht,
Hit scholde make þem alle abayscht ;
Wyste þe Romayns þys chaunce wore,
Hit scholde enforce hem wel þe more.
The Old-French verb which connoisseur seems to be derived from is conoistre, cunoistre, cunustre, conuistre, qenoistre (etc) vs Modern-French connaître. See the conjugation :
4 - a bit specialized words, but still rather Norwegian:
masseur (= massør)
entrepreneur (= entreprenør)
jongleur (= sjonglør)
restauranteur (= restaurantør)
poseur (posør)
3 - unusual words you would use for a certain (humourous) effect:
flaneur/flâneur (= flanør)
voyeur (only frequently used word with original spelling...... )
2 - words you don't dare to use because your audience don't know what they mean:
grandeur
connoisseur
1 - words whose meaning even a cultured person like you don't really know:
hauteur
colporteur
0 - all the other listed words which don't exist in Norwegian
I had an experience related to words like these in Moscow before Christmas. Because of a delayed flight, KLM had put us in a luxurious hotel and they had a "concierge". My two con-voyageurs labelled me upper-class at once when they discovered that I knew the meaning of that word, which was totally obscure for them! I just protested that I had just read a lot of decadent fin-de-siecle books, but never interacted with an actual concierge, just regular middle-class receptionists!
Deborah
greg in noord-frankrijk wrote:
Deborah : I may be wrong but I thought you wrote 5 for totally French & vice-versa ; I've switched your numbers ; tell me if it isn't so.
You're right. Be advised, everyone who reads my list, that you should reverse my numbers.
Akoni
you forgot garage lol
greg in noord-frankrijk
Re: Fancy Frenchified Words ... and other borrowings
Fredrik wrote:
chauffeur (= sjåfør)
Fredrik wrote:
jongleur (= sjonglør)
So it seems that the Danish word-initial phoneme [S] (X-Sampa) = [ʃ] (API) can be written <sj> as in Dutch.
Fredrik wrote:
regisseur (= regissør)
While it can be written <g> when it's not word-initial.
Uriel
Benjamin, you never cease to amaze me! A connoisseur is someone who is both an ardent fan of something and an expert on that subject -- a wine connoisseur, a food connoisseur -- they love it, and they know their shit when it comes to talking about it!
Used all the time in English!
As for your list, greg, I can only really break it down into 3 categories:
Words that are completely French, and I don't even know what they mean:
Re: Fancy Frenchified Words ... and other borrowings
greg in noord-frankrijk wrote:
Fredrik wrote:
chauffeur (= sjåfør)
Fredrik wrote:
jongleur (= sjonglør)
So it seems that the Danish word-initial phoneme [S] (X-Sampa) = [ʃ] (API) can be written <sj> as in Dutch.
Fredrik wrote:
regisseur (= regissør)
While it can be written <g> when it's not word-initial.
In Norwegian [ʃ] can also be written <g> when word-initial:
<giro> ['ʃi:ˌʁu] or /sheeroh/ (English transcription), meaning "giro", as a mode of payment. But that is rather rare and limited to a few foreign loan words.
Usually <gi> (= "give") is pronounced [ji:]. (/yee/ in English transcription.) The un-palatalized spelling reflects Old Norse pronounciation, which was [gi:] and which Danish has kept more of.
Some foreign loan words also have a hard word-initial g:
<gir> [gi:ʁ] (or /geer/ (English transcription)), meaning "gear", the transmission device in cars or bikes.
BTW [ʃ] or /sh/ did not exist in southwestern Norwegian a few generations ago. Thus my great-grandparents would have pronounced <sjonglør> (= <jongleur>) [ˌsjoŋ'lø:ʁ] (or /syonglur/ in English transcription). After it was introduced from eastern Norwegian it has recently started to replace both [sj] and [ç].
(I used [ʁ] because I use a uvular r. Other r's are also common in Norwegian).
Loic
I largely agree with Uriel with respect to her categorisation of the various words according to the perceived level of Gallic influence.
Connoisseur is such a commonly used word. I cannot think of an elegant English equivalent of this word and it is abnormal if one goes to extraordinary lengths to denounce this word as an ugly import that dare not speak its name.
Or maybe Benjamin is being sarcastic when he said that he did not know the meaning of the word. The British are well known to be connoisseurs of irony after all.
Benjamin [inactive]
loic wrote:
Or maybe Benjamin is being sarcastic when he said that he did not know the meaning of the word. The British are well known to be connoisseurs of irony after all.
Seriously, I had never heard or used that word before — it doesn't seem to be common here at all.
Loic
Don't take it seriously, mate. I was just pulling your leg.
I'd expect connoisseur to be a rather difficult word that might come out in your A levels comprehension passage. So it's a good thing that you now know about its existence!
PS: I read the Financial Times regularly and I am happy to say that this London-based newspaper with its distinctive salmon pink pages used the word 'connoisseur' in one of its commentaries last week. I think it was used in the context of a portfolio manager being connoissuers of the efficient market hypothesis.
Julian
I agree with Uriel categorizations. Except maybe "jongleur" which is a legitimate "English" word that is rarely used outside of discussions about medieval poets.
Deborah
Uriel wrote:
Words that are completely French, and I don't even know what they mean:
colporteur
Surely you've heard of "colporteur"! He wrote Begin the Beguine, Night and Day, I Get a Kick Out of You...
Julian
Deborah wrote:
Uriel wrote:
Words that are completely French, and I don't even know what they mean:
colporteur
Surely you've heard of "colporteur"! He wrote Begin the Beguine, Night and Day, I Get a Kick Out of You...
Deborah
Actually, I thought greg put it in as a joke!
greg in noord-frankrijk
Deborah wrote:
Actually, I thought greg put it in as a joke!
I thought about our friend Cole — but it wasn't a joke as such...
Uriel
I thought of Cole Porter, too, and then said, nah, can't be....
Garage is French, yes. How is it pronounced in French, anyway -- more like the British "GARE-rodge" or the American "ga-RAHZHE"?
Benjamin [inactive]
loic wrote:
I'd expect connoisseur to be a rather difficult word that might come out in your A levels comprehension passage. So it's a good thing that you now know about its existence!
Well I knew the actual French word, which is spelt connaisseur, if that's what you're referring to.
Fredrik
Uriel wrote:
I thought of Cole Porter, too, and then said, nah, can't be....
Garage is French, yes. How is it pronounced in French, anyway -- more like the British "GARE-rodge" or the American "ga-RAHZHE"?
The American pronounciation seems to be closer, but it's hard to tell with you guys who can't pronounce one, clear vowel.
In French it's something like:
[ˌga'ʁa:ʃ] or /gah-RAASH/.
Forgive me if I teach you un peu du Français norvégien, but I just love to finally be able to write/read IPA on Langcafé!
Uriel
Hey -- not ALL of our vowels are diphthongs!
greg in noord-frankrijk
Uriel wrote:
Hey -- not ALL of our vowels are diphthongs!
C'est vrai. Mais quasiment aucune des vos voyelles ne sont cardinales...
Uriel
I assume cardinal vowels are
A=ah
E=eh
I=ee
O=oh
U=oo?
We have all of those! And lots more besides....
greg in noord-frankrijk
Uriel wrote:
I assume cardinal vowels are
A=ah
E=eh
I=ee
O=oh
U=oo?
We have all of those! And lots more besides....
Bien sûr il est difficile de généraliser, ne serait-ce qu'en ne considérant que l'anglophonie nord-américaine où la variation dialectale existe : l'inventaire vocalique n'est pas rigoureusement identique selon que l'on se trouve à San Francisco ou à Toronto — et même dans une ville comme New-York, on doit pouvoir établir l'existence de voyelles dont la prononciation est différente suivant les classes sociales ou certains facteurs individuels.
En Europe anglophone aussi (et surtout) la variation dialectale est un phénomène très puissant et solidement installé. Cette réalité linguistique a évidemment des implications concrètes en termes de variabilité sociogéographique de l'inventaire vocalique.
Le même phénomène concerne la langue française quel que soit son siège : Europe, Amérique, Afrique etc. Idem pour l'espagnol, le portugais, le russe etc.
Par conséquent je mesure bien le caractère réducteur de notions telles que l'inventaire vocalique appliquées à une langue considérée hors de sa variabilité intrinsèque.
Pour autant, et en ne retenant, par exemple, que l'anglais normatif d'Europe (ce qu'on appelle la RP), on est frappé par l'absence de voyelle cardinale qui caractérise ce dialecte.
Ainsi le son cardinal [u] (API & X-Sampa) n'apparaît pas dans <took>, <book> ou <look> — d'ailleurs la graphie <oo> est symbolisée par [ʊ] (API) = [U] (X-Sampa) pour ces trois mots. On entend la voyelle cardinale [u] dans <two> mais, outre qu'elle est très allongée, elle est précédée de la brève [ʊ] = [U]. Par exemple An <shoe> & Fr <chou> sont deux pseudo-homophones : An [ʃʊ̯uː] vs Fr [ʃu] (API) ou An [SU_^u:] vs Fr [Su] (X-Sampa). NB : le symbole [_^] en X-Sampa (la petite courbe sous la lettre en API) signifie que la voyelle précédente ne constitue pas une syllabe —> les graphies <wo> & <oe> de An <two> & <shoe> correspondent à [ʊ̯uː] en API et à [U_^u:] en X-Sampa, ce qui veut dire que l'émission sonore se fait d'un trait, en une seule syllabe (cette syllabe est appelée rising "diphthong" ou onglide en anglais — ce n'est pas une diphtongue à proprement parler mais ça c'est une autre histoire).
Toujours dans la perspective de l'anglais normatif d'Europe, le même principe peut être appliqué pour les sons écrits <ee> & <ow> dans des mots tels que An <see> & An <low>. Ces deux mots sont des pseudo-homophones de Fr <si> & Fr <l'eau> qui eux contiennent deux voyelles cardinales et aucune trace de diphtongaison ni de pseudo-diphtongaison (à part sans doute au Québec mais, comme je le précisais pour l'anglais, on considère ici le français normatif d'Europe).
Quant aux voyelles anglaises orthographiées <e> & <ar> dans An <get> & An <park>, ce ne sont pas des traces de pseudo-diphtongaison qui les excluent de la cardinalité, mais un autre critère sur lequel je pourrai revenir en anglais quand j'aurai plus de temps.
Sorry Uriel : I'll try to translate all that jargon later — when I have time.
Uriel
True; Brits talk funny.
(Or at least, that's what I got out of Babel Fish.... )
greg in noord-frankrijk
What I meant basically is that no vowel from the RP vocal inventory is cardinal. Contrasting pseudo-homophones taken from different languages (at least from dialects enjoying the same kind of status : Europe's normative French & English) help understand why. For instance (phonetic symbols in IPA) En <shoe> is [ʃʊ̯uː] while Fr <chou> is [ʃu] — that's in X-Sampa : En [SU_^u:] vs Fr [Su]. In that example [u] (IPA & X-Sampa) is a cardinal vowel whereas [ʊ̯uː] (IPA) = [U_^u:] (X-Sampa) is not for that two-vowel combination is an onglide (which is also called a rising "diphthong" though it is not a diphthong stricto sensu).
The same kind of reasoning applies to vowels written <ee> & <ow> as in words like En <see> & En <low>. Both are near-homophonous to Fr <si> & Fr <l'eau>, where <i> & <eau> happen to be ones among the many written forms for the cardinal vowels [.i] (IPA & X-Sampa) & [o] (IPA & X-Sampa) respectively. Both vowels in En <see> & En <low> are somehow "diphthongised".
Lazar
Yeah, there is a very prevalent tendency in English for those vowels to be diphthongized. In my own US accent, I've got:
)
lol
