For instance, the word flirter<\/em> ‘to court someone\u2019 is obviously adapted from English to flirt<\/em> and it has the same meaning in both languages. But the English word is the adaptation of the French word fleurette<\/em> in the expression conter fleurette<\/em>! The expression conter fleurette<\/em> is no longer used (casually) in spoken French.<\/p>\n Other examples of English words borrowed from (parts of) French expressions which then get adapted into French are in (2).<\/p>\n Thus un rosbif<\/em> is an adaptation into French of roast beef which is itself an adaptation into English of the passive participle of the verb rostir<\/em> \u201croast\u201d which later became r\u00f4tir<\/em> in Modern French, and buef<\/em> \u201cox\/beef\u201d which later became boeuf<\/em> in the Modern French.<\/p>\n The word un toast<\/em> comes from English toast with the meaning \u201cpiece of toasted bread\u201d. The English word itself was borrowed from tost\u00e9e<\/em>, an Old French noun derived from the verb toster<\/em> which is not used in Modern French. The word p\u00e9digr\u00e9<\/em> comes from English pedigree<\/em> but this word is itself adapted from French pied de grue<\/em> \u201ccrane foot\u201d, describing the shape of junctions in genealogical trees.<\/p>\n Finally, the verb distancer is transitive in Modern French, which means that it requires a direct object: thus the sentence in (a) is good because the verb distancer<\/em> \u201cdistance\u201d has a direct object, the phrase la voiture blanche\u00a0<\/em> \u201cthe white car\u201d. By contrast, the construction in (b) is not acceptable (signified by the * symbol) because it lacks an object.<\/p>\n a. La voiture rouge a distanc\u00e9 la voiture blanche. The (transitive) Modern French verb distancer<\/em> comes from English to distance<\/em> which itself is a borrowing from the no-longer-used Old French verb distancer<\/em> which was uniquely intransitive with the meaning \u201cbe far\u201d (that is, in Old French, distancer<\/em> could only be used in a construction with no direct object).<\/p>\n Another instance is (3): the word tonnelle<\/em> ‘bower, arbor\u2019 was borrowed into English and became tunnel<\/em> under the influence of the local pronunciation. The word tunnel<\/em> was then borrowed by French to refer exclusively to \u2026. wait for it \u2026 tunnels. Both words now subsist in French with different meanings.<\/p>\n Other examples of words that were borrowed into English and ‘came back\u2019 into French with a different meaning are in (4).<\/p>\n The ancestor of tennis is the jeu de paume<\/em> during which players would say tenez<\/em> \u201cthere you go\u201d as they were about to serve (at that time the final \u201cz\u201d was pronounced [z], it is not in Modern French). This word was adapted into English and became tennis<\/em> which was then borrowed back into French to refer to the sport jeu de paume<\/em> evolved into.<\/p>\n The Middle French word magasin<\/em> used to refer to a warehouse, a collection of things. This word was borrowed into English and came to refer to a collection of things on paper. The word magazine<\/em> was then borrowed back into French with this new meaning.<\/p>\n The history of the word budget also interesting. The word bouge<\/em> used to mean \u201cbag\u201d and a small bag was therefore bougette<\/em> (the -ette suffix is used as a diminutive, e.g. fourche<\/em> \u201cpitchfork\u201d \u2013 fourchette<\/em> \u201cfork\u201d). The word was borrowed into English where its pronunciation was \u201cnativized\u201d and it came to refer to a small bag of money. It was then borrowed back into French with the new meaning of \u201callocated sum of money\u201d. Finally, ticket<\/em> was borrowed from English which borrowed it from French estiquet<\/em>, which referred to a piece of paper where someone\u2019s name was written.<\/p>\n This happens in other languages of course. For instance, Turkish took the word pistakion<\/em> ‘pistachio\u2019 from (Ancient) Greek which became fistik<\/em>. (Modern) Greek then borrowed this word back from Turkish which was then spelled phistiki<\/em> with the meaning ‘pistachio\u2019.<\/p>\n The main lesson I draw from the existence of ‘prodigal loanwords\u2019 is that one\u2019s impressions of language corruption often lack the perspective to actually ground that impression in reality. A French speaker looking at flirter<\/em> ‘flirt\u2019 may think that this is another sign of the influence of English — and they would be right — without being aware that this is after all a French word fleurette<\/em> just coming back home.<\/p>\n Do you know other examples of prodigal loanwords? Please, share by commenting on this post!<\/p>\n Sources:<\/span> Most people at some point in their life will have heard someone remark on how their language X (where X is any language) is getting corrupted by other languages and generally \u201closing its X-ness\u201d. Today I would like to focus on one aspect of the so-called corruption of languages by other languages — lexical borrowings \u2013 and show that it\u2019s perhaps not that bad. European French (at least the French advertised by the Acad\u00e9mie Fran\u00e7aise) is certainly a language about…<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/1.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Fleurette.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/grue.png\")
\n‘The red car distanced the white car.’
\nb. *La voiture rouge a distanc\u00e9.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/3.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/tunnelbower.png\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/4.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/paumetennis.png\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/5.png\")
<\/p>\n
\n L\u2019aventure des langues en Occident, Henriette Walter<\/span>
\n Honni soit qui mal y pense, Henriette Walter<\/span>
\n J\u00e9r\u00f4me Serme. 1998. Un exemple de r\u00e9sistance \u00e0 l\u2019innovation lexicale: les \u201carcha\u00efsmes\u201d du fran\u00e7ais r\u00e9gional, Th\u00e8se Lyon II<\/span>
\n Javier Herr\u00e1ez Pindado. 2009. Les emprunts aller-retour entre le fran\u00e7ais et l\u2019anglais dans le sport. Universidad Polit\u00e9cnica de Madrid.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"