« Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose »
I was thinking recently about how different the French and English languages were, yet also that they were so similar.
So I did some investigation and got some pretty interesting results!
“Ch” becomes “C” /k/
chat = cat
chapeau = cap
The circumflex (^)
Whenever we see a circumflex it indicates an “S”.
So “hôpital” becomes “hospital” and “pâte” becomes “paste/pasta”.
“U” turns into an “L”
This is a bit more complicated; when a “U” is preceded by a vowel it becomes “L”.
peau = peal
veau = veal
This interplay between U and L can be seen in the French words “beau” ♂ and “belle” ♀.
So if we use all of the above techniques we can see that “château” = “castle”.
Ch(C)-â(AS)-te-au(L)
“E” = “S”
This is a weird one, but it works.
êcole = school
étoile = star
écureuil = squirrel
étudiant = student
“G” becomes “W”
guerre = war
garde-robe = wardrobe
“-IT” or “-IRE” becomes “-CT”
fait = fact
conduire = conduct
parfait = perfect
As interesting as these connections are they’re not really that useful but they do remind us how intertwined* English and French are.
Until next time…
*to intertwine = entrelacer