Vocabulary
- Some words that passed into French and in English
The English words dolmen and menhir have been borrowed from French, which supposedly took them from Breton. However, this is uncertain: for instance, menhir is peulvan or maen hir ("long stone"), maen sav ("straight stone") (two words : noun + adjective) in Breton. Dolmen is a misconstructed word (it should be taol-vaen). Some studies state that these words were borrowed from Cornish. Maen hir can be directly translated from Welsh as "long stone" (which is exactly what a menhir or maen hir is).
To jabber in foreign tongue : French baragouiner from bara 'bread' and gwin 'wine'.
Sea gull (big one) : French goéland from gwelan same root as gull (Welsh gwylan.)
Read more about this topic: Breton Language
Famous quotes containing the word vocabulary:
“One forgets words as one forgets names. One’s vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die.”
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966)
“[T]here is no breaking out of the intentional vocabulary by explaining its members in other terms.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“The vocabulary of pleasure depends on the imagery of pain.”
—Marina Warner (b. 1946)