Exploring some aspects of Frenchness in English.

FOR the title I do not really mean “French-fried”, which term I use merely to catch the reader’s attention. Rather I mean that English is somewhat “Frenchified”, which term I use not in a derogatory sense but with awe at the ways in which French has enriched the English language. Incidentally, the influence of French – and with it that of Latin as well – on English (then Old English of Anglo-Saxon England) is not some recent happening, but one going as far back as the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 CE.

I do not know French, but I’ll try – hopefully with collaboration from my fellow-learners – to explore some aspects of the Frenchness that exists in English.

Gender-specific: In English, Datuk Siti Nurhaliza is a ‘singer’, a term used for both men and women. In French, however, she is a ‘chanteuse’, which indicates her gender.

Words from French

English has admitted into its vocabulary thousands of words from many languages, including French. With French words, however, there seems to be less tweaking of them to fit into English orthography. Rather many French words are hijacked into English with their spellings and pronunciations intact.

The following are some features of French words adopted into English: (1) diacritics, e.g. façade (with a small “tail”, a cedilla, trailing from the bottom of the letter “c”), née and passé (with a little tick, an acute, over the letter “e”), vis-à-vis (with a reversed tick, a grave, over the letter “a”), and rôle (with a “cap”, a circumflex, over the letter “o”) – but the diacritics are commonly omitted; (2) the terminating -re pronounced as -er, as in manoeuvre, reconnoitre, and sombre; (3) the terminating -re sounded as a faint burr represented by the phoneme “r”, as in genre and macabre; (4) the terminating -le pronounced as -l rather than -el, as in ensemble; (5) the terminating -oir pronounced as -wah, as in memoir and reservoir; and (6) the terminating -ment pronounced somewhat like -mong but with the “ng” muted, as in denouement.

There is more to the pronunciation of French words, which would take much space to elaborate. The following is a short – and I mean “really short” – list of French words whose pronunciations and meanings I leave for my fellow-learners to find out for themselves: aplomb, ballet, boutique, boutonnière, bureaux, charlatan, chic, contretemps, corsage, cortege, debris, debut, décolleté, ennui, entourage, exposé, gauche, Grand Prix, hauteur, lingerie, naive, négligée, panache, patois, rapport, rendezvous, sans, savant, soirée, suave.

(Remember Prof Higgins, in the musical My Fair Lady, expounding: “The French never care what they do, actually, as long as they pronounce it properly.” I advise my fellow-learners of English to do as the French do when pronouncing French words. Anything less would bring on the sniggers or outright guffaws!)

The -or/-our conundrum

The careful reader will have noted that many words end in -our in British English (BrE) but -or in American English (AmE), e.g. ardour/ardor, colour/color, odour/odor. The epenthetic “u” in the BrE spelling is a legacy from Anglo-Norman French/Old French/French (ardeur, couleur, odeur). On the other hand, AmE bypasses the French influence and goes back to the ultimate source in Latin (ardor, color, odor).

There is something to be said in favour of the -or termination in the original Latin. Even the obtrusive “u” in BrE is commonly dropped when derivative suffixes are added on, e.g. odour but odorant, odorous, odoriferous, odorise/odorize.

The -ise/-ize conundrum

Do we write odorise or odorize? The first type of spelling is of French influence – with the verb-forming suffix -iser. The latter type of spelling is of older origin – with the Greek -izein. There was a time not too long ago when some British English dictionaries (e.g. Chambers’s Twentieth Century Dictionary, 1960) admitted only the -ise spelling while others (e.g. the Oxford dictionaries) accepted only the -ize spelling. Although AmE admits the -ize form exclusively, BrE now accepts both -ise and -ize spellings. I quote from Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th edition, 2004, p.756: “The form -ize and -ise are, in many cases, straightforward spelling variants. However, the -ise spelling is obligatory in certain cases: first, where it forms part of a larger word element, such as -mise in compromise; and second, in verbs corresponding to nouns with -s- in the stem, such as advertise and televise.” I may add that the verb capsize should be spelt as such – the -ize is not a suffix but an integral part of the verb. There is something to be said for the suffix -ise over -ize. Only the suffix -ise retains its form in further derivations, e.g. realise/realize but realism (not realizm) and realist (not realizt).

Gender-indicating suffixes

French has contributed several suffixes to indicate the gender of nouns. The following are some French-derived suffixes that distinguish the feminine from the masculine: (1) -é/-ée, as in divorcé/divorcée, protégé/protégée; (2) -ian/-ienne, as in comedian/comedienne, equestrian/equestrienne; (3) -eur/-euse, as in chanteur/chanteuse, masseur/masseuse, raconteur/raconteuse; and (4) -tor/-trix, as in aviator/aviatrix, executor/executrix, testator/testatrix.

Extending Latin word-building elements

English has an awesome range of affixes and combining forms – including the thousands of those of Latin origin – that go into the building of words. French, a Latin-derived language, adds to such word-building facility. It has – for reason of euphony? – the tendency of softening or rounding out the sounds of its Latin-source words, thus making available to English additional word-building elements apart from the original Latin-source words. For example, English is able to build many words from just one Latin preposition contra “against, opposite” plus some combining forms, e.g. contradict, contradistinction, contraindicate, contrapuntal, contravene. The French equivalent, counter-, extends the word-building capability of the original Latin contra-, with such examples as counter-attack, counterbalance, countercharge, counterclaim, counterclockwise, countercurrent, counterfoil, countermand, countermeasure, counterpoise, counterproductive, countersign, counterweight. Similarly, think of the extended word-building capabilities with some examples of the Latin original as against its French-tweaked equivalent: (1) pro “for” (as in project, etc.) versus pur (as in pursue, purvey, etc.); (2) super “above” (as in superficial, etc.) versus sur (as in surname, etc.); (3) recognoscere vs reconnoitre; (4) capio, capere, cepi, captum “to take, to capture” (as in caption, captive, capture, recapture, etc,) versus conceive, deceive, receive, reception, etc.; (5) curro, currere, cucurri, cursum “to run” (as in current, recurrent, etc.) versus course, recourse, etc.; (6) pono, ponere, posui, positum “to place” (as in pose, expose, exposition, exponent, etc.) versus compound, expound, impound, etc.; and (7) video, videre, vidi, visum “to see” (as in visor, vision, advise, revise, television, etc.) versus view, review, voyeur, etc.

Some common expressions

Let us round up with a short list of French expressions adopted into English: agent provocateur, coup d’état, double entendre, en bloc, en masse, en route, faux pas, fin de siècle, haute cuisine, hors d’oeuvre, lèse-majesté, nouveau riche, par excellence, raison d’etre, RSVP (répondez s’il vous plaît), tour de force.

As usual, the watchword is “Pronounce with care”.

Parting remarks

There is no doubt that French has contributed much to the overlay of erudition in good spoken and written English, and that English would be much poorer without its French connection. It is estimated that about 30% of the vocabulary of the English language is of French origin (New Straits Times/NIeXTER, May 5, 2011, page N6).

As a user of the English language, I want, in my own small way, to show appreciation to the French. Merci beaucoup. Au revoir.

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