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frank theriault wrote:
Boris,
This is a part of history that I'm pretty fuzzy on, but the royal courts of France and Russia were quite closely connected, were they not? Did they not actually speak French in the Russian court in the 18th and/or 19th centuries?
IIRC there was a connection by marriage (not unlike many European royals).
That's likely the reason for the French words "borrowed" by Russian. I think, anyway.
cheers, frank
"The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
From: Boris Liberman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: frank theriault <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: About my name Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2004 20:16:38 +0200
Hi!
ft> I guess many cultures used "son of" as a suffix, for a second name.
ft> I know that in French, a suffix like "ault" means son of (or something like
ft> that); so Renault is "son of Rene", Perrault is likely "son of Pierre" and
ft> Theriault is "son of Thierry". I don't know when these things
ft> "crystallized", such that those surnames stuck, and one stopped being named
ft> after there fathers. As you said, I'm sure there were local variations, and
ft> in some areas the custom may have persisted longer than others; indeed, in
ft> some areas it may not have happened at all.
Frank, some years ago my wife and I went to Dijon for vacation. We were amazed about how many words in Russian are actually on loan from French.
In particular, "ov" suffix (just like "ault") means son of. So Ivanov (surname) means actually "son of Ivan". Which by the way sounds very much alike its French counter-part.
Boris
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