Translators endeavor to keep their source and target systems separate so as to prevent contamination at various linguistic levels. However, there is no preventing contact among languages, perhaps even more so today than ever before with English. Franck Resplandy’s book is about a particular form of language contact termed lexical borrowing, and specifically for French. In L’Étonnant Voyage des mots français dans les langues étrangères (The Amazing Journey of French Words in Foreign Languages), there are approximately 700 French words indexed. This book could be called a dictionary of French word borrowings, had it been written by a team of lexicographers. Instead, the author, Franck Resplandy, uses the metaphor of the journey, both to track the itinerary of borrowed French words, and to take his readers on a journey to faraway places, where French has taken a life of its own. The result is a work of linguistic and lexicographic import (the list of acknowledgments covers many professional linguistic specialists for each language), unencumbered with theory and the technical aspects of grammar, phonetics, and citation. L’Étonnant voyage reads like a series of small story entries, interspersed with anecdotes and sharp editorial comment (see Figure 1 for a sample boxed entry).
The title of Resplandy’s book sets both the scope and the tone of the work. Resplandy tracks French borrowings in about 15 languages —from English to Russian, Polish and Slovakian, to Japanese, Spanish, and Turkish —and he seeks both to surprise and amaze you with the stories of these linguistic travels.
Indeed, not only will you be astonished; you will also be amused and enchanted. For example, would you believe that an “Alain Delon or Delon” (Alain Delon — famous French male movie actor) is a three-quarter-length suede coat lined with fur in Romania? Similarly, you will be surprised to know that a “Bardotka” (Brigitte Bardot — famous French female movie star) is a push-up demi-bra in Polish, and that a “Degolowka” (De Gaulle &#!51; famous French general and president) is a cap, also in Polish! I would have been far more surprised had I not, incidentally, recently sampled a preview of borrowings at the 2006 Sundance film Festival in Utah, with a movie called Madeinusa(1) [Made in USA] —the name of the sweet and troubled 14-year-old Indian girl, the protagonist of the film, and a common first name in the deep regions of Peru. However, this is hardly that different from the U.S., where you will find out, on page 158, that there are apparently 269 young girls called “Chanel.”
Still by way of borrowings, there is much more to learn in this book. During the height of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, German linguists apparently decided to change linguistic contact by suggesting ways to replace English word borrowings with French borrowings, a list of which appears in L’Étonnant voyage. For example, the following French replacements were suggested (p.65): “D’accord” instead of “Okay”; “Trikot” instead of “T-shirt”; “Formidable” instead of “Cool”; and “Chef” instead of “Boss,” all of which the author applauds as a German Francophile initiative, while questioning the linguistic effectiveness. Back home, of course, French suffered a major setback with restaurants all over the U.S. changing their menus to offer “Freedom fries.” As did Senator John Kerry (p.106), when we find out he also became known as “Jean Chéri” to emphasize his ties to the French.
Have you ever wondered how all the linguistically loaded proper names of the comic strip Astérix have been exported — or translated — into the 100 languages of the 330 million copies sold worldwide? See pages 187 and 188 for a glimpse of the contact, and of our art, and put on a smile. For example, “Panoramix” (the Druid) is called “Miraculix” in Germany, Denmark, and Sweden; “Magigimix” in the U.S.A; “Aspirinix” in Hungary; and “Abrakadabrix” in South Africa (Afrikaans)!
You are in for a few more surprises when you find out (p.126) that it is assumed your favorite “Mariachi” bands derive their names from signs that were placed outside that read “marriage ici” (wedding here) some 400 years ago. Would you also be surprised to find out that the Chinese way of answering the phone, “Wei,” comes from the French “Ouais,” spoken in Shanghai in the 1920s (p.194), despite the bountiful wealth of the Chinese language, which names the telephone “diàn hùa,” meaning “electric words,” as Resplandy points out.
There are 196 pages of this kind of research, and wonderful information. Next time you hail a “cab,” remember that it derives from the word “cabriolet” (a fast, horse-drawn carriage), (.p 41). When summer comes and you wear your favorite “bikini,” remember it was created on July 5, 1946 in Paris, and that the name was borrowed from the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, where nuclear testing was underway ( p. 32). You can also fill-in the associative blanks regarding “explosions” and sexuality until you hear it directly from Franck Resplandy. Meanwhile, check out page 130 for “MAYDAY” an international term, derived from the French “Venez m’aider” (Come and help me).
L’Étonnant voyage is a joy to read and the linguistic content a delight. Complete with an index, bibliography, and website references for seven languages, this book scans all corners of the world in a “small and global planet” spirit that is the hallmark of this new millennium. This is also a book that is deeply French and Francophile, for everywhere French words have infiltrated, changed their meanings, and found new roots, most often there lies a love of this language and the culture it embodies. L’Étonnant voyage is perhaps the only one of your reference books that you will read from cover to cover, savoring the phonetic, semantic, cultural, and geographic itineraries of the words it contains. Enjoy!