New French terms to keep an eye on: ramdam, eblabla, tchatche, infolettre, débat, bolidage

Saturday, April 03, 2010

Here are a few new French terms (an article in English on the subject can be read here) that have been chosen to replace English terminology. They are:

buzz --> ramdam
chat --> éblabla / tchatche
newsletter --> infolettre
talk --> débat / bolidage

A good overview on what makes terms like these successful or not in any language can be read here (I first mentioned the site in a post here in January), a site on astronomical terms in Persian but also referencing French success or lack of it in finding French equivalents for English terms. As always, brevity is extremely important, which is why French astronomers use trou noir for black hole (syllable length is the same) whereas décalage vers le rouge is far too long to replace redshift.

  © Blogger templates Newspaper by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP