[Lexicog] mentee/mentoree

[David Frank]

Hayim --

If something like dédiquer was indeed a French word during the colonial period (that is, around the 18th Century), then it would make sense that that French word could have been the basis for the French Creole word dédiké. Dédiquer is not a word in Modern French, but those of us who try to figure out why creole langauges are the way they are have to realize that they are based on an older and perhaps dialectal form of French, English, etc., rather than on the modern languages.

A couple of similar words in French Creole that I can't find as such in French dictionaries include hayisans 'hatred' (obviously related to an older form of French haïr where the h was pronounced) and bwavté 'bravery' (obviously related to French brave). Since creole langauges are supposed to be essentially devoid of morphology, the question of interest to creolists is whether these words are based on French nominal forms or whether they reflect productive morphological processes in St. Lucian Creole.

By the way, I looked at our Kwéyòl Dictionary again and realized that we do have dédiké listed as an adjective after all, meaning 'dedicated'. We don't have it listed as a noun, but following the normal pattern it could be used as a noun meaning "one who is dedicated."

-- David Frank
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Hayim Sheynin 
  To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2007 4:36 PM
  Subject: Re: [Lexicog] mentee/mentoree


  Dear David,

  dedico, -avi, -atum, -are is well documented verb in classical Latin. I didn't check, but I am almost sure that use of this word is continued in vulgar Latin and from there came into English and some other European languages. There is a large number of Engish derivatives from this verb and from other Latin words of the same base dedica-/dedicat- and and among them dedicator and dedicatee.

  Hayim Sheynin

  David Frank <david_frank at sil.org> wrote:
    Actually, dediquee is a good St. Lucian French Creole word, though we spell it dédiké. It is listed in our dictionary as a verb meaning 'to dedicate,' but following the pattern of French Creole verbs, it could be used as an adjective or a noun as well, meaning '(one who is) dedicated.' We had a problem with this French Creole word in terms of finding the source, though, because it does not seem to be based on a French word that I have been able to find. The French verb is dédier. So the French Creole word seems to be a frenchified version of the English word "dedicate." I just got back from a conference in Amsterdam where I talked about the problems of pinpointing the origins of certain St. Lucian words like this. (Hi, Joseph Farquharson.)

    In this recent discussion, I don't think anyone has mentioned the obvious fact that the -ee words are based on the pattern of the feminine form of the past participle of French verbs. For example there is French employer 'to employ' with the past tense form employé 'employed' doubling as a masculine adjectival form and employée as the feminine adjectival form. The corresponding French noun is employeur, from which we evidently get English "employer."

    We can expect to have some -ee words that don't have a -er or -or counterpart, such as "divorcee" or "amputee." On the other hand, I checked an unabridged dictionary just now and did find "divorcer" listed as "one who divorces."

    -- David Frank

      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: David Tuggy 
      To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com 
      Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 4:58 PM
      Subject: Re: [Lexicog] mentee/mentoree


      -ee spawns oddities, it seems to me. Two others I have enjoyed, and seen in fairly high-falutin' publications, are baptee (=one who has been baptized) and dediquee.

      --David Tuggy


      Benjamin Barrett wrote: 
The normal formation is to add -er/-or to get the person doing it and add -ee to the receiver of the action. So employ-> employer, employee, address -> addresser, addressee. There isn't a verb for mentor, but using back formation you get: mentor <- ment and then ment -> mentee. BBFritz Goerling wrote:I discussed with David Frank, an SIL colleague on this list, whether "mentee" or "mentoree" is more common.
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