Re: English compared to other European languages


Lee Sau Dan wrote:
> >>>>> "Seán" == Seán O'Leathlóbhair <jwlawler@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
> Seán> "ing" is a rare ending in French except for loans from
> Seán> English. I expect that it makes a word look foreign to a
> Seán> French speaker. "Weekend" does not have "ing" but has its
> Seán> "w" which is also rare in French.
>
> And that's why I was shocked when I read and heard "le weekend"
in
> French. Upon reading, I couldn't even imagine how they
would
> pronounce it! Similarly, I also find the word "tramway" strange
in
> French. While "weekend" and "football" are pronounced more
like
> English (with a French accent), "tramway" is pronounced in a
quite
> French way: French "r", French "am", French "ay".
>
>
> --
> Lee Sau Dan
>
> E-mail: danlee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee

L'Acadamie does not totally ban English words, it is just very
selective. The aspect that surprises me is that the ones that accept
often are the ones that look least like native French words. "Weekend"
and "Football" are odd but I find the "ing" words even more odd. They
often use "ing" words for concrete nouns:

shampooing shampoo (the substance)

parking a parking space or lot

smoking a smoking jacket / tuxedo

Why use the "ing" in "shampooing"? Why not just "shampoo" as in
English?

These are all in my Larousse dictionary which is a single language
French dictionary bought in France.

"Le Bon Usage", a grammar book of French, in French and for the French,
lists /N/ as a French phoneme but all the examples are adopted English
words.

I think that the French can easily pronounce a close approximation to
English weekend. The final "nd" is the tricky bit but the "d" may be
dropped in rapid English speech as well. It is just that the spelling
gives them little help. How would pronounce "ouiquenne"?

Anyway, does it matter whether they pronounce it accurately? We use
many French words such as "bureau" and don't pronounce them much like
the French. They work well as English words. The French may borrow
our words, pronounce them strangely, and mangle their meanings if they
like. It would only be fair, we have done it to their words.

--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair

.

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