The Linguistic Trickery of French False Friends Frequent in English
Scientific Proceedings of Vanadzor State University Humanitarian and Social Sciences (ISSN 2738-2915)
2024 vol 2
The Linguistic Trickery of French False Friends Frequent in English
Ella Sargsyan
Summary
Key words: influence, interrelation, vocabulary, alterations, meaning, phonetic resemblance, etymological origin, pronunciation, misunderstanding
In the article we tried to show that French and English have been in close interrelation during all their existence, as a result of which the two languages had great interaction. English borrowed from French numerous expressions that were quite practical. Perhaps one of the reasons is that the English uses foreign words more freely than the French. Due to this fact today’s English has been transformed into a merged language. In the process of borrowing, some words continue to be used in the meaning they had in their native language, while others, retaining the basic “form”, have completely changed their meaning, as a result of which arose a great change in their meaning.
This is the general understanding of a false friend—the word leads to believe that it’s the accurate translation of the word in the native language. French linguists Maxim Koessler and Jules Derecquigny first used the phrase “Faux amis du traducteur” in their book in 1928. “False friends of the translator” was the English translation of the phrase, which ultimately shortened to “false friends.” They will lead you to believe that a French term has a meaning that is similar to an English word when in fact it does not.