Aug 16, 2005 23:16
Ami and Amie (the masculine and feminine words for "friend", respectively) seem to me to come from the verm aimer, which is "to like/to love". So I can, if I choose to, literally translate "friend" as "beloved (one)" or at least "beliked (one)". Or am I just making shit up with my non-native-speaker weirdness? Similarly, famille (the word for "family", and pretty clearly the source of the English word or at least a cognate or whatever; I'm probably misusing the jargon but I'm tired, okay?) seems to have a form of aimer built in as well? All this comes up because I was trying to translate the phrase "friends and family" into French, and the asinine wordplay part of my brain started taking over, and I figured better to go all hyperanalytical than try to make puns in a language I'm really only barely conversant in... but I could be wrong or maybe not even wrong, on many levels. Must. Sleep.
words,
french,
language,
linguistics,
wordplay,
questions,
geekery,
puns,
etymology