Foreign "ghost" words in English - is there a word for it?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Does anyone know the word for this please (and maybe have some more examples of it)? “Window” in French is “fenętre”, which means nothing in English but we do have “defenestrate” (ie, to chuck out of the window) as a sort of ghost version of it.

Does anyone happen to know if there’s a formal word for this foreign ghost word phenomenon?

[wigginhall]

Does anyone know the word for this please (and maybe have some more examples of it)? “Window” in French is “fenętre”, which means nothing in English but we do have “defenestrate” (ie, to chuck out of the window) as a sort of ghost version of it.

Does anyone happen to know if there’s a formal word for this foreign ghost word phenomenon?

It reminded me of 'cognate', whereby words in different languages have the same origin, e.g. English 'starve', and German 'sterben', but your 'defenestrate' is a bit different.   I don't think there is a word for it, so you can call it a ghost word.

There is also 'calque' which is a literal translation of a foreign word, again a bit different, e.g. 'skyscraper' in French is 'gratte-ciel'. 

Also, 'loanword' sounds quite close, as with 'cafe'.   

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loanword 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Wiggs,

It reminded me of 'cognate', whereby words in different languages have the same origin, e.g. English 'starve', and German 'sterben', but your 'defenestrate' is a bit different.   I don't think there is a word for it, so you can call it a ghost word.

There is also 'calque' which is a literal translation of a foreign word, again a bit different, e.g. 'skyscraper' in French is 'gratte-ciel'. 

Also, 'loanword' sounds quite close, as with 'cafe'.   

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loanword

That's very helpful - thank you.

On a different matter, I sometimes wonder at the French use of "WC" on loos. Why would the abbreviated English for "water closet" be the standard French usage?

[Nearly Sane]

I think it's more just s quirk of language development and doesn't have a specific term. It looks to me like an example of the overlaying of French Latinate at a higher level to the Anglo Saxon or Norse, in the case of window. See link below.

I suspect that a lot of words beginning 'de' are similar. The one that it immediately occurred was deracinate vs uproot

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_with_dual_French_and_Anglo-Saxon_variations

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi NS,

I think it's more just s quirk of language development and doesn't have a specific term. It looks to me like an example of the overlaying of French Latinate at a higher level to the Anglo Saxon or Norse, in the case of window. See link below.

I suspect that a lot of words beginning 'de' are similar. Throne that it immediately occurred was deracinate vs uproot

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_with_dual_French_and_Anglo-Saxon_variations

Thanks for this - useful stuff. "Pensive" and "penser" was another one I was thinking of – I just find it interesting that the primary word falls away for some reason, but variants of it cling on in the host language.

[floo]

In my home island a French Patois is spoken mainly by the older people, although they are trying to get the younger generation interested in it. Some of the words are more English sounding than French. Also many of the names, which have a French spelling, are pronounced in the English way. For instance Guilbert is pronounced as  Gilbert. My maiden name is French but that is pronounced in the French way, the English find it very hard to pronounce correctly because of the spelling!

[jeremyp]

As a left hander, two of my favourite examples would be dextrous and sinister. These aren't from modern French, of course but there's also gauche  and adroit which kind of are.

Virtually every kind of meat we have - beef, veal, mutton, lamb, pork, bacon, ham - is a French word whereas the animals they came from are saxon. There's a good explanation for that involving class.

[Harrowby Hall]

Modern English is virtually two languages existing side by side - Norman French and Anglo Saxon (including words sourced from other north European lanquages). It is quite possible to make statements which are largely influenced by only one language which can be matched by an equivalent statement using the other source.

For instance, deriving from Norman French, you could say "Meretricious sesquipedalianism".

And, deriving from Anglo Saxon "Bullshit baffles brains."

Anglo Saxon, I believe is characterised by meaning arising from the use of short "particles" while Norman French is inflected, meaning being determined by specific word endings (clearly influenced by Latin). Our normal everyday usage is about 80% Anglo Saxon and north European and 20% latinate words. People wishing to appear intellectually superior tend to use multisyllabic and multimorphemic words which are more likely to have had a Latin-influenced source

A quick glance in my Oxford Dictionary gives "window" as coming from the Norse vindauga, the latin word for which was fenestra.


A level of complexity, however, is added by the old Norse word meant an unglazed opening (Wind eye) and the German word for glazed opening is actually fenster.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Thank you jeremyp and Harrowby Hall - interesting contributions from each of you.

I just remembered another ghost word - "forty" is "quarante" in French and "quaranta" in Italian, from which (of from their Latin root) we get "quarantine" because a ship suspected of carrying disease was required to wait outside of port for forty days.

("Disease" from dis-ease by the way....). 

[Harrowby Hall]

As a matter of interest, Blue, why "ghost"? Are they haunting you in some fashion?

My view is that the dual sources of English give it a strength and flexibility and expressiveness that many other languages lack.

[Nearly Sane]

I was thinking that bhs was thinking along the lines of linguistic ghost signs.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_sign

[SqueakyVoice]

BHS,

For no apparent reason, the term orphaned words came into my ahead this morning.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Orphaned_words

I hope this leaves your gruntles a bit less dissed.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Harrowby,

As a matter of interest, Blue, why "ghost"? Are they haunting you in some fashion?

No, it just seemed an appropriate description for words (or derivations from words) that hang around in the shadows still in odd places, but whose parents are not themselves in the language (“defenestrate”/” fenętre” for example).

My view is that the dual sources of English give it a strength and flexibility and expressiveness that many other languages lack.

I agree with that, though the issue here is more about words that that somehow make their presence known without themselves being in the language. 

[Harrowby Hall]

One of the features of the dual language heritage of English is that there are social differences in the Norman French/Anglo Saxon sources. jeremyp has already mentioned food names. The nobility (whose forbears arrived with William the Conqueror) consumed meat to which they gave names derived from words  their parents had used: beef, pork, mutton. The animals were looked after by indigenous Anglo Saxons and were given the names their parents had used: cow, pig, sheep.

As it happens, "fenestration" is a word used by architects to describe the way in which windows are arranged on the elevations of buildings they are designing. "Defenestration" should mean removing windows.

"Defenestration" appears to be used in an imprecise manner when it relates to someone being thrown through a window, perhaps "exfenestration" would be more correct. It may be that originally, when the act happened in a city far,far away (Prague) the term was meant to imply mordant humour on the part of the original writer.

So, the common people use the Norse word windows  to identify the holes in buildings which let light through and the designers use the Latinate fenestration to identify their creative input.



                                                           

[Harrowby Hall]

Hi Blue

How would you categorise the words Warranty and Guarantee?

Etymologically, these are the same word - save for a little linguistic evolution.

[wigginhall]

It's amazing seeing the history of some words - I was looking up 'tapestry', derived from French, as one would expect, but then the French derived from Latin, and the Latin derived from Greek.    What a wealth of cultural and social history is revealed in some words.   Old French 'tapisserie', Vulgar Latin 'tapetium',  Byzantine Greek 'tapetium', classical Greek, 'tapes', also Persian 'taftan'.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Harrowby,

How would you categorise the words Warranty and Guarantee?

Etymologically, these are the same word - save for a little linguistic evolution.

I'm not sure I'd even try! Your point about class though is interesting - we have it now don't we. When someone says "dinner" meaning their midday meal (some) others will judge them for it, similarly with "toilet", "serviette", "pardon", "settee" etc - all non-U. It's George Bernard Shaw's "It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him" I guess.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Wiggs,

It's amazing seeing the history of some words - I was looking up 'tapestry', derived from French, as one would expect, but then the French derived from Latin, and the Latin derived from Greek.    What a wealth of cultural and social history is revealed in some words.   Old French 'tapisserie', Vulgar Latin 'tapetium',  Byzantine Greek 'tapetium', classical Greek, 'tapes', also Persian 'taftan'.

Sure is. In mediaeval France there was a betting game in which the contestants would put their money in a pot, and the winner would be the first one to hit a chicken with a pebble. That chicken ("poule") game gave us "pool", meaning to share resources which in turn gave us car pool, typing pool and even gene pool (though funnily enough not swimming pool). And funnily enough too, though we do't have "poulet" (as it now is) for "chicken", we do have "pullet" for young chicken - which brings us back to foreign words making spectral appearances in English.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Squeaks,

For no apparent reason, the term orphaned words came into my ahead this morning.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Orphaned_words

I hope this leaves your gruntles a bit less dissed.

Sorry I missed this before. Yup, "orphaned" words would be suitable, though in the link it doesn't refer to foreign words specifically. Odd though that some words in English survive only in the negative. Perhaps we should try to reintroduce "gruntled"?