Friday foolishness: foreign words

[Salikoko Mufwene]

At 09:04 PM 9/15/2000 +0100, Lynne Murphy wrote:
>>>
>>>Why would "voie unique" bring up the idea of "unique views?"
>>>
>>>Sali.
>>>
>>Well, if you had absolutely no idea what a "voie" was but you figured
>>it was something unique that could be found on (or near) the road you
>>were driving along, 'view' might be a reasonable (though obviously
>>completely wrong) guess.  And they even look sorta similar.
>>
>>larry
>
>Especially if you know a little French, and assume that 'voie' is
>related to 'voir'.
>
     Unlike "voix" ('voice'), "voie" ('way') is ultimately from Latin
"via". But my PETIT ROBERT here tells me that in the 11th century it turned
to "veie" and "voie". On the other hand, "voix" is from Latin "vox" and it
apparently turned to "voiz" around the same time. (By the way, is this
where English got "voice?")

Sali.


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Salikoko S. Mufwene                        s-mufwene at uchicago.edu
University of Chicago                      773-702-8531; FAX 773-834-0924
Department of Linguistics
1010 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/humanities/linguistics/faculty/mufwene.html
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