American language; Imported from France

What do you know about the words you use. Do you really know the American language and the words that make it up. Today we present the seventh program in a new series on the American language by Mitford Matthews. Mr. Matthews is editor in chief of the Dictionary of American isms published by the University of Chicago Press and is a lecturer in linguistics at the University of Chicago. Today's program is on imported from France. Mr. Mathews. If human life can survive the scientists as Bertrand Russell thinks it may be that time will come when scholars in much greater numbers than at present will turn their attention to the preparation of comprehensive dictionaries of America names of all kinds. The special a place name. When March of this kind are available the embeddedness of American English to French explorers and missionaries in the 17th and 18th centuries can be ascertained with much more fullness and accuracy than at present.

From the little that is now available high over it it's clear that the early Frenchman who explored bass stretches of what is now the United States and the past Jesuit missionaries who went with the explorers or were explorers in their own rights had a prominent part in writing down them names of Indian tribes many of which have now become household words in this country. A short list of such tribal designations as the French were the first to write down. Would include such words as ARC and Sol but Luxor Chippewa Cheyenne Creek Erie Illinois our Iroquois Kansas Kickapoo Missouri matches were neither oh say Pascagoula Sioux Wisconsin. The trouble for the careful student of course is that some of these names that we now have of them are by no means the same inform our

pronunciation that they were first written down by a Frenchman. The French were not alone. In recording the night names and even though they were the first Apparently the right. These particular ones that it might not be easy in all cases to show conclusively that it was the French recording that had been decisive in shaping the present turn. It is also to be noticed that while the main was a numerate It began as tribal designations. Many of them are now no longer sold but are placed names pure and simple. In the case of some of the words in our list there is something in the form of the word are some feature of its pronunciation that harks back to French for instance in the pronunciation of Arkansas all Illinois Iroquois. We carefully avoid pronouncing the final s. It is not likely that many

of those who are less careful in the pronunciation of these words. That you mean the one that didn't hear a word of him like that and there is not to be logical we should exercise the same scrupulousness about a meeting in pronunciation the final s in Kam's us that we do in not touching that of Arkansas weapons relieve the realisation that Kansas is a French form has not been sufficiently vivid to wrest the pounds of English users of the word. As a rule the French did their best to write down as accurately as possible the names of the Indian tribes they encountered. But in one notable case they departed from the life of one of their Canadian trading posts there showed up some Indians who were of such I'm on it.

Right where you are and never bothered to inquire what might they remind you of their tribe. All in the US a derogatory expression in his own language and call them and from which we get here runs on money and has now become part of the English language. Being with you in our days with reference to one of the Great Lakes in that part of the country formerly occupied by the who of the tribe of America they're the right people. Laura made a mistake which gave a rather queer and I am to Indians who were in no way entitled to it. The explorers of course could not speak a word of the language of many of the Indians they came a mom nor could they Indians understand a word of French. Such communication their forest took place between the French and Indians abounded in opportunities for misunderstanding. Often the only way they could converse of call well by means of the sign

language somewhere in the north where earlier came from some Indians who in the famine language were designated by a sweeping gesture with both hands in front of the abdomen. The Frenchman understood that this gesture was supposed to give them a clue as to the name of the Indians and so without much hesitation they came to the conclusion that Indians were telling them something about their abdomen on the fringe pondered the matter of whether they would be a member klunker explained that they were in my name from the salves of their abdomens. You made it look a fright when warm the bed believed in them. The GRO didn't know that either. Big bet later it was found out that you were trying to say something like our aim was the hunger one.

We are all way is hungry. This better on the stunning However it came too late to save the Indians in question from being called Grow Ventre to this day. The French made the same again with reference to some Indians not related to the ones already mentioned whom they encountered somewhere on the Missouri River in former times these Indians platitude parallel stripes across their chests and in the picture riding used by some of the planes on them. Serve the morning for the lab work. Thank you. Call the white man. Warm food on their chair. But the French were not able to understand what the Indians had in mind. The gesture they were using suggested to the Franks member played who were calling the other of them worked with the French gave them the same name they had the other India call them grow

them. Also though they were not related to the others and drew out of a considerable distance from. Bergen with Pilate it was discovered that the gesture in the sign language which served as the name of the Missouri NDA meant to convey some such information I asked Will you have the people of the spreading p p o r. We are those who live in rows of bloods. All those who spoke English following in the wake of the Frenchman took over the French name who had little thought about the matter but sometimes they either translated the French expression or pronounced it in the English manner so no one would now suspect that the money was ever frames. This is what has happened in the case of Sapir in Lake Superior. The French name this lake when their knowledge of the Great Lakes was not complete and their name for it was Loch superior

by which they meant it was the upper lake. The French who took the name over pronounced the French word as though it were superior on the ocean and which they easily fail. Because this lake is superior in size to the others in its group being in fact the largest body of fresh water in the war. In the case of New Orleans those who followed the French translated the first half of the MAME of this French city moved their Lauralee young and pronounced in their own fashion the second part which they could not well translate. The resulting sit in mine was in former times and sometimes even today pronounced New Orleans but the preferred pronunciation had New Orleans. Well the prince placed Miami in parlor translate the French voyageurs and trappers who first became acquainted with the badlands in South Dakota and Nebraska

inquired of the Indians what they call this region. The Indians call these lambs Naeem which signified that they were difficult to travel through. The French obligingly rounded the Indian expression motivate care's who are true very sorry that it was Badlands to cross. Those who spoke English not being disposed to take over the Indian I mean whatever it was I'm not inclined to try to pronounce the French expression translated all of it. They want it as bad lambs and let it go at that. But just as in the case of the other languages from which we in this country have borrowed words the place name borrowings from Prange are only a small part of the whole story. So many French words have become English at the hands of our predecessors in this country that we might do well to devote some attention to a few of them having to do with foods as we have done and dealing with Dutch and German borrowings. We got off to

a good start here. Bar Restaurant is a word we have taken from French and so is cabaret. Both these words are more than 100 years old in the English of this country. It may be that restaurant K-Man to use first in Boston for the earliest evidence so far found far out is from that city. In this connection it is interesting to observe that women who Word first came in there was provided by my name Paul the keeper of such an establishment such a person was a restaurant later this term was in use in Boston as earlier 1796 and this said by a remarkably precise reporter to have been introduced there by an immigrant on July 12th 1793 to heighten this delightful accuracy about the introduction of this word in Boston. We may add that July 12th 1793 was Wednesday.

Unfortunately we have no information as to the precise hour when this obliging immigrant contributed Resta rater. The term still had signs of life in it a hundred years later but it seems never to have had enough vigor to get out of the Boston environment chowder is even older in American-English than Russia and as in the case of that term the earliest evidence for it comes from Boston where papers were printing directions for making it was earliest 1751. The word became so popular that it entered into a number of combinations such as clam chowder Cape Cod chowder Yankee chowder and became the name given to a party attended by those desirous of enjoying this dish together. Nor should sight be lost to the fact that those in search of a safe and sane way of swearing used to content themselves with by chowder

which has a mild imprecation served its users very well. Some of the more colorful of the French food terms have now passed out of the far with changing times. There come changing places. It is to the New Orleans area that one must go for the best of the French food terms non-US Chamblee is a good representative of this city's food terms. It is one of the most famous of the Creole dishes being composed essentially of rice and meat. Usually less crabs oysters chicken turkey and so forth. The word jam comes from the peasant for each of the South of France and not from that variety of the language which is used listed in SKU more than one hundred fifty years ago. The French in New Orleans began to use a flavoring preparation made of powdered sassafras leaves. You just said that the Choctaw Indians neighbors of the French in Louisiana taught

them to make best use of the leaves of the sassafras. The name the French gave to this condiment is fair life which is nothing more than the past participle of the French verb or delay meaning among other things to fill layers of course not to be eaten alone but is used to thinking soups and make the more palatable. The choicest of all soups in the New Orleans area is gumbo. A word which will engage our attention later when we come to discuss terms contributed to our language by African slaves. You have heard Mitford not use in our talk on words imported from France. This is the seventh program of the series. The American Language. Mr. Mathews is editor of the dictionary of Americanisms and lecturing linguistics at the University of Chicago. This program is produced in the University of Chicago radio office by Thomas de Paris.

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