The Languages of Europe: A Cultural Introduction

A Cultural Introduction to the Languages of Europe

Prof. Joseph E. Garreau

I’ll begin with a little story, a true story that tells you about A German feels about an Italian, more exactly how a young German driving a German car felt about an Italian automobile. That was in the summer of 1961, I was hitchhiking on my way to Innsbruck, in Austria, to join a group of German and Austrian friends I had met at the university of Louvain in Belgium where I was a student at the time and go hiking with in the Austrian Alps. A young German salesperson in a blue Volkswagen, not the bettle but the 1500 squareback of old, picked me up on the German autobhan on his way to Munich. There was no speed limit on the autobahn in those days, and I still can see the needle past the 150 km mark, and that was fun ... Suddenly a red Alfa-Romeo sped by at about 170, 180... like a bolide (a French word from Latin bolis, from Greek bolis like a missile (or a missile). We both looked silently at the vanishing beauty. Then, my German driver said to me in perfectly intelligeable French : you see – he was talking about the fast and flashy Alfa-Romeo, that is the girl to love, but THIS, adding a gentle tap to the steering wheel of his reliable VW (pronounced “FaVé”) IS the girl to marry.

This true example shows how Germans see Italians : nothing in their view replaces Teutonic reliability. Italian women may be beautiful, fancy Italian cars are perhaps very fast, but we Germans prefer German engineering! A big difference!

Here is another important notation: One of the major cultural differences between northern Europe (Scandinavian countries, Benelux, British Isles, Austria and Germany) and southern Europe (Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece) is the way to conduct business, namely on a much more concessus-type approach in the north whereas it’s a more autocratic and authoritarian, - understand “bossy-type” in the south. Human nature may be the same everywhere but we do not think or act alike. The’re is, for example, an expression in Dutch ‘een zuideneuropees leventje’, which says it well. It can be translated as something like “a little life from the south of Europe” that is to say an easy life without problems.

We never must not forget the “weight” of European history : centuries of wars between the British and the French, the French and the Germans, the British and the Irish, the British and the Dutch. Why do you think we still say in English “to talk like a Dutch uncle” or “to go Dutch”? This is just a reminder of the time when the rivalry in international commerce between these two sea powers was high. Dutch courage, for the British, is the courage of the drunkards, a Dutch wife is (“pardon my French”) a bitch of a wife.

In the late Middle Ages, when the lingua franca was Latin, there were already a series of formulae more or less proverbial, in which were expressed stereotypes, which already were a form of linguistic racism. The most often quoted of these examples is the one about the multilingual Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V (1500-1558) and what language he would employ. If he wanted to talk to men, the Emperor said, he would speak French; if he wanted to speak to ladies, he would speak Italian; to speak to his horse, he would speak German and, if he wanted to talk to God, he would speak Spanish. This is, of course, the Franco-Spanish version of the anecdote ; for the Italians, Italian, of course, is the language of men and French the effeminate language. . . German is also ill-treated in another proverb that goes back to the XVIIth century: “German howls, English cries, French sings, Italian plays the comedy, and Spanish talks.”

• Let’s begin with the French and see how other languages treat them. English first. Sure, we find ‘French cuisine’, ‘French dressing’ , ‘French fries’, but immediately after, in alphabetical order: ‘French kiss’, ‘French lover’, ‘to take the French leave’, and other pejorative expressions, such as the ‘pardon my French’ just mentioned...

Spanish treats the French a bit more generously. They say ‘desperdirse a la francesa’, (which means without saying good bye), the same as the Germans say ‘sich auf französich empfehlen’ (to escape the French way), which, in both cases seem to have been borrowed from English.

The Dutch may say about the French and their cuisine : ‘Leven als God in Frankrÿk’, that is to say : live like God in France, but they also nasty things about them: ‘Franse complimentem maken’ (to compliment the French way, that is say, ‘to flatter’), ‘Met de Franseslag’ (in the French manner, that is to say sloppy), and here is another one: ‘Parÿse opvattingen’ (Parisian ideas, which means allowing all kinds of debauchery).

The Danes are nor far behind: ‘frankske artikler’ (French articles, no! not le, la, les, but condoms). The French, on the other hand, used to say - for the now all too-common préservatifs - ‘capotes anglaises’ (= ‘English raincoats’). For the Danes, ‘franske postkort’ (French postcards mean erotic postcards). Here is another one: ‘franske ydelser’ (French benefits, by which, you must understand, mean not taxable).

From all this we gather a rather negative image of the French: flatterers, lazy and debauched for the Dutch; with a reputation for “taking the French leave”, not very trustworthy in a word. Or again, take the English dictionary and what it says in a Shakespeare’s concordance at the word French: “the lusty French”, “the false French, “the fearful French”.

Truly, the French have had bad press. As individuals they are much like anyone else, some good, some bad. But everyone has the same gripe about the French as a nation : that they’re arrogant. Even the English and the Germans think so, and they should know. They complain that the French act if they had invented culture, as if no one else could cook with élan, write poetry with panache, or behead aristocrats with finesse. For proof of French arrogance, people say, one need look no further than their generous contribution to the lexicon of snobbery, to which they have donated nouveau riche, parvenu, arriviste, petit bourgeois, faux pas and chauvinist, among others.

Now, what about the English?

The French say ‘capotes anglaises’, and the English reciprocate with ‘French letter’. In slang, you’ll hear the expression ‘les Anglais ont débarqué’ or ‘avoir ses Anglais’ (in reference to the red uniform of the British army in the XVIIIth century. For the French, the English are also des rostbifs, whereas the Dutch prefer to say ‘Engels gaar’, cooked the English way, that is to say badly prepared. But it’s mostly their supposed coolness that seems to dominate with stereotyped expressions such as : ‘Engels flegma’ in Dutch, le flegme britannique, or as they say in Danish “stive englændere’’, the ‘stiff English’.

More seriously, what does this mean? Let’s try to make sense out of this.

When you look at all these stereotyped expressions, which are like fossils or traces of times past, what do we see?

1. First, the profusion of popular ways to name people living on the other side of the border, based on their food habits: froggies or frogs, rosbifs, Krauts or sausage eaters, or macaroni or pizza eaters, with a geography based on four poles: overcooked roastbeef in England, saucisse and cabbage in Germany, frogs and escargots in France, and pasta and more pasta in Italy.

2. The second picture we get is simply the way the English talked about their neighbors, the French, the Dutch, and the Irish. You know some of these expressions about the Irish : ‘Irish bull’, ‘to get on’e Irish up’. In other words, these pejorative expressions are like fossils, traces of times past, reflecting the ideological look that the British cast on their former enemies and that have been kept in the language without, many times, any thought of offending anyome anymore.

3. There is a third form of racism prevalent in Europe, racism against foreigners. Just think of the word we use in French, Italian, Spanish for a foreigner: étranger, straniere, extraño, the word means both foreign and strange. In the Romance languages, the word for ‘stranger’ also means foreigner, outsider. It has a clear ‘them and us’ distinction.

Since the1950s, many new strangers have come to Europe –

Turks, Indians, Africans and Arabs - ‘guest’ workers are they’re call in German or former colonial subjects, some of whom are now in Belgium, France or England second generation Europeans. But there is a widespread reluctance to accept them as fellow Europeans. The Italian press has found a novel way of calling these people. They call them extracommunitarios, meaning from outside the European community, which disregards the large number who are European citizens. The expression has caught on, but in shortened form: they’re call the extras.

To me this outwardly innocuous little word (“extras”) is more dangerous than froggies or Krauts or rosbifs. Names can always hurt you. Sometimes they stick, sometimes people become what you call them. It’s been 1500 years since the Vandals devastated Gaul but - what do you think the word ‘vandalism’ come from? – they still get the blame for graffiti and broken public toilets.

There is indeed a paradox, Frogeaters, Rosbifs, Krauts, Macaronieters and others, in short the very people who call themselves names, are working toward a European Union and, at the same time, they don’t seem to stop making fun of each other.

[TO BE REWORKED] Is there is hope, it is with the young people of Europe required to study two foreign languages in school and having constant student exchanges. To study another language is to mold yourself into another view of the world, and go farther in your perception of the ‘other’, deeper than the fact he or she eats frog legs, cabbage, spaghetti or roast beef. This will take years. And whatever form the European Union takes, the non-flattering portrait is not going to fade away in one or two generations.

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E u r o p e a n E t y m o l o g i e s

Introduction

1. Some Examples

• Etymology : from Gr.etumos (true) and logia (science or study that deals with a certain subject) is the study of the origin, formation, and development of a word. Semantics is the study of meaning in language forms, particularly with regard to its historical change.

•Whisky < Gaelic uisce (which is pronounced [ishgui] and means water.

In a similar fashion, vodka is the diminutive of Russian voda, which also means water and can be compared to French eau-de-vie or Spanish agua ardiente.

• Carnaval < carnem levare = to take meat away = allusion to the meatless days of Lent. Cf. carême, < quadragesima dies (fortieth day), end of Christ’s fast in the desert.

• Marshal (high officer of state, of the army, in charge of ceremonies)

< OF. mareschal (mod. maréchal) < OHG.marah (horse) and scalc (servant) = he who takes care of horses.

• Pantaloon > pants, F. pantalon < San Pantal(e)one, a favorite saint in Venice, whose name means “all misericordious” (pan eleimon in Gr.) ; then a Venitian caracter in Italian comedy represented as a foolish old man (xvi); breeches in fashion after the Restoration (xvii); tight-fitting trousers which superseded knee-breeches (xviii); trousers in general (xix).

• Belladonna = “fair lady”: medicinal plant containing atropine, the propriety of which is to dilate the pupils of your eyes. Said to be so named because in Italy (xv) a face cosmetic was made from it, making the lady beautiful = bella donna.

• Symposium = “drink together”; initially a banquet. (same word: potion).

• Pregnant, Sp. incincta < from Latin etymology meaning wearing no belt.

• Stallion , Fr. étalon < (ad stallum) = at the stall, i. e. reserved for reproduction.

• Porcelain > china ware < porcella , diminutive of porca: sow: - porca, fem. of porcus swine; originally the shiny shells are said to have been so named from their resemblance to the vulva of a sow. Fr. procelaine, It. porcellana. [porcus < (0)F porc > pork: flesh of the pig used as food (xiii)].

•Book. In English, the word book is related to beechtree. In Russian, beech is said bouk. In German, a letter from the alphabet is Buchstab, which literally means a beech stick; letters were inscribed on such sticks.

• In Romance languages (Sp. and It. libro, Fr. livre > librairie > Engl. library), the word comes from Latin liber, i.e. the thin part of the tree between the cork and the sapwood, which is used as paper.

• The same vegetal origin is found in the word paper < papyrus. This Egyptian reed is also at the origin of the city of Byblos in Lebanon, which gave the word bible. It is interesting to note that exceptionally the word parchment

(< Fr. parchemin) is not linked to the vegetal world, etymologically it means “Parthian skin” i.e. writing material prepared from skins invented at Pergamum in Asia Minor.

2. Names of Monetary Units

[TO BE REVIEWED – add story of the Euro Ï ]

• The dollar is a deformation through bad pronounciation of the word Thaler, old German currency. The word comes from Joachimst(h)aler and the Joachim’s valley in Bohemia where mines were exploited to make silver coins.

• In Germany, the name mark comes from the mark that identifies the coins, such as the écu , i.e. the shield struck on old French coins of the same name, which is found in the Portuguese escudo. (ecu = European Currency Unit.)

• The franc is the beginning of the inscription from the legend Francorum rex = king of the Franks, on gold coins first struck in the reign of Jean-le-Bon (1350-64). We may compare it with the future European currency, the Euro, which is also a prefix.

• Many names of monetary units are linked to the idea of weight, the weight of a precious metal, usually gold. Peseta (peso) < Spanish silver coin : dim. of pesa weight. (from L. pensa, pl. of pensum > poise, to ponder, peser). < Pound = £ ( French reminiscence of livre = pound). Same in Italian (Turkish, Lebanese) with lira.

• British penny and German Pfennig are the same word, probably from Latin pannus, a cloth (pieces of cloth were in Barbarian Europe used as a medium of exchange).

• The florin (Netherlands) is a gold coin first issue at Florence in 1252. It. fiorino, from fiore flower; the coin originally so named bore the figure of a lily on the obverse.

• The Russian ruble comes from the verb roubit (to share, to partake). A ruble is a “parcel” of gold.

• The dinar of some Arabic countries is the equivalent of the old Latin currency thedenary, whereas the Morrocan dirham is the Greek drachma ; the rial is the king’s money: the réal. Denary, drachma, rial all are European names.

• The Haïtian gourde comes from Spanish gordo : big amount of money!

3. Names of Peoples and their Languages

• The Germanic tribe called the Franks, whose chief was Clovis, gave the French their name. In many foreign languages the name remains the same, simply deformed or “disfigured” by local phonetics and the different endings of the adjective form: Engl: French, Ger. Franzose, It. Francese, Sp. Francés,

Slavic Frantsouz, Arabic Fransaoui, etc.

• In Finnish, where are not used words beginning two consonants, the omission of the intial [F] in France, gives the name Ranska.

• The Japanese insert the letter u between f and r, which gives Furansu.

• The Chinese utilize an [a], which gives fa-lan-sa, shortenend in fa. The ideogram, i.e. the Chinese character that represents this fa means “law”. A Frenchman: fa-guo-ren [fakwojen] = “a man from the country of the law”.

• The Greeks, who are an old people, retain the Gallic name, i.e. the one preceding the invasions of the Frank tribes. France = Gallika.

• Germans are designated by one or the other of the Germanic tribes that settled in Germany, or in Allemagne (from the Alemanni) as we say in French. In the first case, the generic term of German is used, in the latter the name of a group of Germanic tribes, the Alemanni, who were defeated by the Franks in 496. The Sandinavians use the name Saksa (Saxons). The name Teuton, which means people or tribe in Celtic, is at the origin of what the Germans call themselves: Deutsch (< Lat. Theudisca ) or its Italian equivalent:Tedesco.

• The Russians call the Germans Nemtsy (Nemets in the singular), perhaps because they occupy territories situated beyond the Niemen river; or perhaps because they are “mute”(niémoï) for the Russians!

• Many peoples name their neighbors by using a pejorative term, which often stays with them for ever. Examples: The Greeks call “Barbaroi” those who did not speak their language, and consequently were the equivalent of savages.

Similarly, for a long period of time, the Western world considered North Africa populated by “barbaric” peoples and name them Berbers, who named themselves (in the singular form) Tamazight i.e. free man or Kabyle , i.e. man of the tribe.

Names can always hurt you. Sometimes they stick, sometimes people become what you call them. Wales is from welisc, the Saxon term for foreigner. Or the Gypsies, so called because they said they had come from Egypt. A last example: It’s been 1500 years since the Vandals - where do you think the word vandalism come from? devastated Gaul but they still get the blame for graffiti and broken public toilets!

4. Days of the Week and Months of the Year

• The days of the week very often are named according to their numerical order; thus in Portuguese: segunda feira (second fair) is Monday and so on until sexta feira (sixth fair), i.e. Friday. Saturday and Sunday retain their religious reference: sabado (sabbath), and domingo (Sunday), day of the Lord (Dominus in Latin).

• In English and in German, Sunday /Sonntag is the day of the sun; Monday / Monntag is the day of the moon = lundi; lunedi; Tuesday is the day of Mars, god of war and fire; Wednesday, mercredi = day of Mercury, god of commerce and trade, or in English day of Wotan, Germanic god of war. In German, as in Russian, Wednesday is the middle of the week (Mittwoch). Thurday, day of Jupiter (in Latin Jovis dies), is Donnerstag, literally day of Thunder, the latter being the attribute of Jupiter. In English, Thursday is derived from thunresday <thunder. Friday, (French: vendredi, day of Venus), is equally devoted to woman in both English and German (Freitag): i.e. the day of Frigg, the spouse of the god Wotan. Saturday is the day of the planet Saturn.

• The names of the months have a great unity in European languages. The first months of the year originate in names of gods, goddesses, emperors or Roman holidays, such as Janus for January, februa, feast of the Purification, for February; Mars for the god of war; Maius, god of vegetation; Junius for June; Julius (Caesar) for July; Augustus for August. The last months are a reference to their numerical order in the old Roman calendar, which began in March with the arrival of spring, from Sept-tember (seventh month) until Dec -ember (tenth month).

• Finnish is a very rare exception. The names of the months are linked to nature. Thus there is the month of the oak tree, seeding, wheat or mud, which somewhat resembles the calendar used by the French Revolution (fructidor, ventôse, etc.)

5. Names of Persons

• Are of Semitic origin first names ending in -el, which is the root of Allah, meaning God. Names, such as Michael, Emmanuel, Daniel, Raphaël, have the meaning of “similar to God”, “God with us”, “God has judged” , “God has healed”. . .

• First names originating in Greek are mostly compound names: Veronica : “the true icône i.e. image; Christopher: “carrying Christ” ; Philip: “who loves horses”; Eugene: “of a good race”; Alexander “defender of men”. One also finds simple first names: Stephen (Stefano, Etienne crown; Basil, equivalent to Vassili: :the king; Catherine: the pure; (Cf. the Cathars); Sophia, wisdom (cf. philósophos: : lover of wisdom).

• Latin first names, examples: Cesar, Julius, Antony, Aimé, René(e): reborn through baptism, Felix: happy, Victor: victorius.

• First names of Germanic origin come from pagan names of men (and women) who were later canonized by the Church; Richard: hard king; Karl / Charles: manly; Hugh: intelligence; Albert (Adal berht): noble and brillant.

• For your curiosity: In the Caribbean (Lesser Antilles), it was customary in colonial times to give as a first name the one figuring on the calendar. So you could have Fetnat (for those born on July 14, Fête nationale) or Immaculéon (December 8) or Pievépape (Pie V, pape).

6. Family Surnames

• In Europe, family names, much more recent that first names, appeared when a registry for baptism and, later on, a civil registry, were kept. Nobles, usually, bore the name of their estate (Michel de Montaigne), whereas people of the common adopted as patronym such and such particularity: character trait, physical appearance, or a personal designation which had passed into a professed trade. Some examples of names of trade: Le febvre < Latin faber (Cf. fabricate); Schneider in German is the same as Taylor in English; Cooper is one who makes and repairs casks; Thatcher is one who makes or repairs roofs, especially with straw; Eisenhauer (Eng. Eisenhower), one who strikes iron.

• Among the many traits indicating physical appearance, examples (in French) are many: Boiteux (Lame), Têtu (Stubborn), Lecourt (The Short), Lelong, Lenoir, Leblond. Are numerous also names indicating a geographical origi, or names linked to a particularity of the land: Deschamps (from the fields), Duchêne (of the oak tree), Dubois (of the woods), - as well as Siobud, Dubois written backwards. Maisonneuve (of the new house). In English, we have Churchill: hill of the church, Copperfield: field of copper.

• It is interesting to note also how some Jewish names of people who have settled in Europe have been modified. Some have retained the name of the religious function, such as Cohen, Levi, Kaplan (priest assistant), others have chosen a name linked to the emblem of the tribe to which they were attached. Thus, the tribe of Juda, whose emblem is the lion, have given in German names such as Löwen. The Nephtali tribe, whose emblem is the deer, has given many Hirsh families, or the wolf of the Benjamin tribe, people by the name ofWolf. Jacob evokes in the Bible the story of Jacob at the well; in the Netherlands, in translation, we may find people by the name of Putteman (from Latin puteus, “people from the well”, Eng. pit, Sp. pozo, It. pozzo. Hence in Italy people by the name of Pozzo.

A well-known French last name is that ofVeil, simply the anagram of Levi.. In the Caribbean, there are names such as Manlius, from the Roman centurion awaken by the geese of the Capitol, or names such as Balicoups (baille-lui des coups = beat him up), whose ancestor probably must have been in charge of administering corporal punishment.

7. Some Examples of Toponymy.

• Istanbul (the ancient Constantinople = Constantinopolis: the city of Constantine) owes its supposed etymology to the Greek phrase Eistan polis, “here is the city” said by a Turk. But it may as well be the simple deformation of Constantinopolis.

• Naples < Neapolis : “new city”. Saragossa < deformation of “Caesar Augustus”; Badajoz < Paz de Agosto: “peace of Augustus”. Many Spanish names have an Arabic origin: Valladolid (i.e. Belad el-walid) is “the country of the father”; in Grenada the Alhambra is al-hamra (the red), from the color of the stone used to construct the palace. Guadalajara, oued el-Haraja, is “the river of pebbles”. Cadiz bears a Phoenician name, a deformation of Gaddir (wall), which we find in the Berber city of Agadir in Morroco.

• In Portugal, the capital city of Lisbon (Lisboã), according to some philologists, stands for Olisippo, “the city of Ulysses”, and, according to others, Alisibbo, a Phoenician name meaning “good harbor”.The province of Algarve originates in the Arabic al-gharb (the west), which we find in Maghreb, lit. “where the sun sets” i.e. the west. Trafalgar (Taraf al-Gharb) = “direction of the west”.

• In Greece, Athens owes its name to Athena, daughter of Zeus, goddess of Art & Thought. Thessaloniki comes from the name of Alexander the Great’ s sister.

• in Germany, Munich or München, evokes the word “monk” (in OHG munih). Köln bears a Roman name: the ancient Colonia (in French, Cologne) Agrippinensis. Similarly, Koblenz draws its name from the Latin Confluentes, the cofluent of Rhine and Mosell. Mainz (Mayence) is a bit more complicated: it is the old Moguntiacum, from the name of a Celtic god, known as Mogo.

• Austria (Autriche) is a deformed pronunciation of Österreich, “Orient Empire”. Its capital, Vienna, is a simplification fromVindobona, a pre-Latin appellation meaning “white location”.

• Zurich (in Latin Duriacum ) comes from the Celtic root*dur , which means water, the same as in contemporary Breton. Basel (Bâle) was in Greek Basilea, the royal (city).

• Luxembourg is also a deformation, that of Lützelburg : small protected castle.

• In the Netherlands, (Holland < holt : woods = a “wooded land”), the names of cities ending in -dam evoke a dam or a barrier constructed across a waterway. Amsterdam is “the Amstel dam”.

• In Belgium, the city of Mons (a Flemish appellation of “monts” = mounts), not surprisingly, is called Bergen in Flemish, i.e. “mounts”. Brussels, originally Bruoc Sella, is composed of Broek (marshes) and seli (dwelling). In Flemish, Antwerpen (Anvers), means “with piers / jetties running out into the sea”.

• In Denmark, literally “march -- [from Frankish *marka i.e. “boundary] - of the Danes”, the capital Copenhagen (København) means “port of merchants”, (cf. German kaufen, to buy).

• In Iceland, “ice country”, the name of its capital, Reykjavik, means “smoking bay”. (Reyk has the same root as German rauchen, to smoke.

• Sweden owes its local name of Sverige to the Varangian people, one of a group of Scandinavian seafarers who established a dynasty in Russia in the ninth century.

• In Great Britain, if we’re not sure of the origin of the name London, we know that Oxford means what is says: the ford of the oxen, the Greek equivalent of which is Bosporus. All the endings in -chester (Winchester, Manchester...) originate in Latin castra (camp). The Essex county is “the country of the Saxons from the east” in opposition to Sussex, which is “that of the Saxons from the south”.

• In France, many cities bear the names of peoples or tribes, whether Gallic or not. (Parisii) > Paris, Angers, Nantes, Poitiers, etc.. Many places bear also a religious name: Saint-Brieuc, Saint-Malo. Sometimes, the name suggests a monastery, Moutiers, or a specific cult (Montmartre : mount of martyrs). Some towns have their names linked to a person: Orléans evokes the emperor Aurelianum. Châteauroux is “le château de Raoul ; Cherbourg comes from Caesaris burgus: the village of Caesar. In Normandy, the names of cities ending in -fleur are a deformation of the Scandinavian word fjord ; for example, Barfleur = “the creek in the shape of a wedge ; Dieppe, simply means “deep”. In the East, the names ending in -wy originate from Latin vicus, meaning village; Longwy = “the long village”. The English equivalent, even closer to original Latin, is-wick (ex. Gatwick, the “Goat Farm”) or -wich (ex. Greenwich).

• To conclude: Indo-Europeans, more than other peoples perhaps, appear to exalt the cult of personality. The Greek emperor Alexander, for example, gave his name to Alexandria (Egypt), Qandahar (India), Iskenderun (Turkey). Roman emperors have been particularly celebrated. Just in France, we have Orléans (<Aurelianus), Grenoble (Gratianopolis), Coutances (<Constantia), Cherbourg (Caesaris burgus). We find the name of Caesar in Israel (Césarée), Kayseri (Turkey), Jerez (Spain); Augustus in Augsburg (Germany), Aoste (Italy), Badajoz (Spain), Famagouste (Cyprus), or, with both names together, Saragossa (Caesar Augustus). Saints, all over Europe, have also given their names to many cities and towns.

We’ve seen the same cult of personality in former USSR, but it lasted just the time of a revolution! Leningrad has returned to its previous Saint-Petersburg. Outside Europe we have, of course, Washington, Harare (Zimbabwe) after the name of a tribal chief, Hochiminhville (formely Saïgon).

Finally, in topology, God seems to be less present than his saints. In France, we have Villedieu (The City of God), in Sweden, Göteborg, ... and that’s about it. Let’s mention alsoAllahabad in India and Bagdad in Irak.

THE INDO-EUROPEAN GROUP

The languages from the Indo-European group, i.e a family of some 132 diverse but related tongues that range from Armenian to Swedish, are spoken by half of humanity. The most distant ancestor that we can study is Sanskrit, one of the first languages of written culture.

Let’s begin by examining the mysterious family ties that link languages as diverse as Russian, English, Latin, Greek, Hindi, Bengali, Singhalese, French and others. The most known example of similarity of that of numbers, where the systematic character of variations helps us prove that we are not talking about coincidences but family resemblance.

Let us select English, German, Spanish, French, Greek, Russian, Persian, and Bengali (8 languages)

EN GER SP FR GR RU PER BEN

1 one eins uno un énas odin yek êk

2 two zwei dos deux dio dva do dui

3 three drei tres trois tris tri sé tin

4 four vier cuatro quatre tésséris tchetyrié tchahar car [tshar]

5 five fünf cinco cinq penté piat’ pandj panc [pantch]

6 six sechs seis six heksi shest shish choe [chhoy]

7 seven sieben siete sept hepta siem haft shat

8 eight acht ocho huit okto vosiem hasht at

9 nine neun nueve neuf énia déviat no noe

10 ten zehn diez dix déka désiat dah dosh

hundred hundert ciento cent hékaton sto sad shô

EUROPEAN ETYMOLOGIES

I. MALE & FEMALE

1. Woman...

• At the origin, we don’t find “Adam’s rib” but an Indo-European root: *dhé (to suck), which we find in the Greek word thêlê (nipple, teat). The Latin felare (same meaning) takes us to the word femina, (femme), by definition “the one who breast feed”. From the same root is the Latin fetus or foetus (pregnancy), which takes us to filiation. (fils, fille, figlio, filho, Sp. hijo). Hijo gives us the etymology of the famous hidalgo, the origin of which is hijodalgo, “son of something”, which is the condition of every being of masculine sex, notwithstanding in vitro fertilization.

The literary term fecundity (borrowed from French fécondité), i.e. fertility, goes back to the same root, but also to felicity (happiness), since the Latin felix meant fertile and therefore happy (Sp. feliz, It. felice).

You may be surprised to discover that Latin fenum, Sp. heno, It. fieno, Fr. foin (hay) and Latin fenusculum,