French in Gibbs' Tsinuk Wawa list

[janilta]

Hello !
Here are some comments on the French words of the Gibbs Jargon list.
I hope all these remarks have not already been discussed on the list
many times... ;-)


1) General remarks

Be-be : the word 'baby' (French 'bebe') comes to mind at once but the
sound is close to French 'baiser' and even closer to Quebec French 'bec'
which is 'kiss'... and perhaps the sound of the kiss itself !

Bur-dach/berdache is really a mysterious word for a French speaker...
(we discussed it Jeffrey !) and its French counterpart 'bardache'
disappeared a long time ago...

Capo' : the French word is 'capote' WITH an 'e', whereas French 'merci'
for 'mah-sie' has NO 'e'...
For 'la-ca-set', French 'la cassette' has TWO 's'...

De-lett for French 'droite' : the 'oi' sound now pronounced as 'wa' used
to be pronounced as 'way' for many words in the 17th century and it is
still the case for some words in spoken Quebec French.
Same remarks for 'la-sway' (la soie), 'la-wen' (l'avoine).

Di-aub/Yaub for French 'diable' has a strong North American French
flavour !... as 'pchih' for 'petit'...

La-gwin may come from French 'la scie egoine' or more simply 'l'egoine'
which stands for handsaw.

La-sanjel comes probably from French 'la sangle' (saddle girth) not 'la
cingle'...

Mel-a-kwa for 'maringouin' is the typical example for a common word in
Quebec French for 'mosquito' whereas in France it is completely unkown
and replaced by 'moustique'...

Tanse can either be French 'danse' as English 'dance'...;-)

No idea for 'huy-huy'. Yes, perhaps 'oui-oui'...??? No idea for
'pollalie', 'la-pellah', 'le-kye'...


2) The le/la (the) riddle

Many words entered Tsinuk Wawa with a 'wrong' French article... which is
quite strange since no French speaker usually makes such mistakes... The
list is thus :
It should be LA mule (or perhaps LE mulet), LE piege (downwards accent),
LA balle, LA creme (but here apparently LE creme for a horse as the
other colour nouns), LA clef, LE mouton (why not in singular ?), LES
ciseaux (here always a plural form), LA dent.
I think the explanation is that these words entered the language as
PLURAL form not singular, so that we have LES mules, LES balles, LES
clefs, LES dents... which is quite obvious for these words which were
often quite logically more than one !
But a riddle remains : why LA-piege ???

Hope it may be useful for some of you. Cheers, Yann.