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We have always known it: salt brings an essential flavor to cooking. We know less: salt also spices the French language because it has given rise to a host of words and expressions. Oh, of course, you don’t need to have studied linguistics for a long time to recognize “to salt”, therefore, but also “salage”, “saloir”, (marsh) “salant”, “salteuse”, “salière”, “saline”, “salinité”, etc. Others, however, are more difficult to identify.
To understand it, we must probably start with a little historical reminder. Our “salt” comes from the Latin dirty and has long kept this form in Old French. This is why, for example, we still say “to salt” and not “to sell” or “to salt”. And as this word could also be written except And be, he left more or less recognizable traces today. Here are some examples:
Salary. At the time of the Roman Empire, the salary designated the “ration of salt” distributed to the soldiers, then the sum allowing them to buy their salt. The word has remained to denominate the remuneration paid in exchange for work.
Sprinkle. Literally: “powder with salt”. Theoretically, we should therefore never sprinkle a dish with sugar or flour… which we have been doing cheerfully since the 16th century. The verb also has uses that are even further removed from its original meaning, notably in finance (“sprinkle credits”) and in rhetoric (“sprinkle a speech with quotes”).
Salad (plant). That its origin is attributed to Italian insalata (savory dish) or Occitan salad (there is debate on this point), the conclusion is the same. The salad takes its name aptly from the salt used for its seasoning.
Salad (helmet). Why does this deep spherical helmet specific to horsemen of the 15th and 16th centuries bear the same name as a lettuce or a rocket? By mistake, of course! This part of the armor originates from the Italian this – in the literal sense: “provided with a great vault” –, itself from Latin caelum “sky”. Until the day when, who knows why, the initial “this” became “his”. This is how, from thiswe went to saladthen to “salad”…
Salami. Let’s stay in the kitchen with salami which, originally, in Italian designated salted meat in general, before specializing to exclusively define this dry sausage.
Sauce. Gastronomy, again, with the innumerable “sauces” which all find their etymology in the Latin adjective salsafeminine of salsus“salty” – why, in old French, we wrote salsa And sause. This is also the origin of our sausages and our sausages.
Salsa. The name of this Cuban couple music and dance literally means “sauce” in Spanish. The link ? Its charm and above all its “spiciness” – with an erotic connotation -, of course.
Wacky. It’s hard to recognize the salt behind this somewhat outdated adjective, and yet… “Saugrenu” does indeed break down into exceptone of the forms of the word “salt”, and in grainy, derived from “grain”. It originally meant “spicy”, “salty” and today applies to anything that may seem bizarre or ridiculous.
Brackish. Again, the etymology is clear. “Brackish” comes to us from popular Latin salmaster, “which tastes bitter and salty like sea water”. It has also kept this meaning even if its second meaning “which is difficult to accept”, is the most common.
The use of “salt” in French is so frequent that it has also given rise to multiple expressions, often used in the figurative sense: “What is finely spiritual in a remark, a writing, a gesture, a situation, or something that greatly increases their interest” (Larousse). Hence “The salt of life”; “A joke full of salt” or even the word addressed by Christ to his disciples: “You are the salt of the earth”.
FIND VIDEOS DEDICATED TO FRENCH AND THE LANGUAGES OF FRANCE ON my youtube channel
Be careful, however, not to go into the opposite excess. No, neither “salamalec” nor “saligaud” have any connection with our “salt”, any more than “saliva” or “salamander”. What do you want ? You can’t put your grain of salt everywhere…
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Canada: English advantage in the face of new technologies?
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Wikipedia, objective ally of minority languages
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Is there literature in the Breton language?
The answer is yes, of course! Not only has the Breton language been written since its origins, but it has even produced a rich literature with authors such as Yann-Ber Kalloc’h, Roparz Hemon or Anjela Duval. Find her story in the magazine’s winter special issue Bretons.
Develop the use of Occitan with Lenga & society
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Do you know the Yenish language of Stefan Eicher?
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Poitevin-Saintongeais in the spotlight
As part of Mother Tongue Week, the University of Poitiers and UPCP-Métive (Union pour la culture Poitou-Charente-Vendée) will sign an agreement on February 22 to promote teaching and research on Poitevin-Saintongeaise language and culture. On the same day, the UFR Letters and Languages of Poitiers will host the “Poitevinologue”, a show on language learning, and in particular Poitevin-Saintongeais. Finally, the next day, the university will host from 2 to 5 p.m. a round table devoted to the teaching of regional languages.
TO LISTEN
123-year-old Breton language recordings
An astonishing audio document in the Breton language has just been rediscovered by journalist Tudi Crequer. It was recorded at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900.
TO WATCH
Where does the cedilla come from? by Bernard Fripiat
Historian of spelling and outstanding pedagogue, Bernard Fripiat now offers a weekly column on Mondays on Télé matin, broadcast around 7:50 a.m. The 4 truths. Discover here his intervention on the invention of the cedilla. And go applaud him at the theater every Saturday night in Paris in his show Simplify the spelling. We vote?.
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