A lexical doublet (or doubled bloom ) is a pair of different words by the form and the etymological direction but of the same origin , entered the language by ways (and generally at times) different. In general, each doublet specializes in a particular direction, more or less near to that which the other kept.

It is the case of many words French: part of French is slowly resulting from the Latin oral and popular, by successive transformations which explains the important differences between Latin and French (for example, regalus gave Royal by a very slow phonetic evolution). Another part of the French words is directly borrowed from Latin (traditional, in general, but also with ecclesiastical Latin of the Middle Ages or the Renaissance): it is the case of the technical term kingly , borrowed from Latin regalis . It is seen that the directly borrowed term underwent only minor modifications, whereas the term resulting from the Vulgar Latin underwent major modifications (palatalization of for example, which makes incomprehensible the royal term to a Latin native speaker).

The lexical doublets exist in all the languages which knew a direct wave of loans to a language, and not inevitably with their mother language. Thus, the Japanese has lexical doublets because it borrowed a great number of terms from the Chinese at the time of the creation of the Written form Japanese (inspired of the Chinese system). Same a Kanji will have a pronunciation of Chinese origin then (insulating Langue), and a pronunciation of origin authenticates Japanese (agglutinant Langue). It results a partly agglutinant and partly insulating contemporary language from it.

One speaks about doublet for a pair of words of very the Part of speech and not of different classes: the latter do not come from same the étymon, like canine dog coming from canis and coming from caninus , although there exists between canine dog and a difference in source (by transformation and loan). Chien does not have a doubled bloom (Substantif which would be borrowed from Latin, in general with traditional or scientific Latin of the Rebirth). On the other hand the canine Adjectif had, before the 12th century, a popular doublet now disappeared: it was the adjective chienin or chenin .

The Rebirth supported the creation of such doubled blooms, thanks to the interest of the Humanistes towards the ancient languages, and because French missed scientific or technical terms.

Dating of the appearance of the words in an etymological dictionary

It results from these differences between the popular term and the technical term inside the doubled bloom that the date of appearance of the technical term can be given rather precisely (terms technical being especially used - and even invented or borrowed - with the writing), whereas the date of appearance of the popular term of the doubled bloom is not the date of invention, but the date of the first occurrence attested with the writing: the writing is indeed the only source of information of the etymologist, which prevents a precise dating of the popular terms thus oral.

Examples

For example, gourd and marrow are doublets derived from the Latin cucurbita , the first entered the language at the 13th century, the second in second half of 14th. Whereas cucurbita indicates marrow, the form gourd returns to the employment which one can make of a marrow as transportable container while the second indicates vegetable well. Difference of Meaning explains, as for it, by fact that marrow is entered language after gourd , and that it thus did not undergo all the phonetic Modifications which were held until the 14th century, like the voicing of initial /k/ in /g/.

But still:

• Royal/kingly (of rex, regus)
• Man/hominidé (of hominis, with only one m )

Popular and erudite doublets

The loan of words to Latin produced many lexical doublets: the French language coming from Latin by a slow evolution, any word borrowed from the traditional language-mother and artificially introduced into the lexicon is suitable for meet its double coming, after a more or less long evolution, same Latin word introduces earlier even inherited directly. This process was constant during the Moyen-âge, in Former French. In addition, the relatinisation of the French language occurred with the Rebirth (especially visible at the 16th century), time to which one imported francized Latin words known as erudite generally employed in technical fields or a literary vocabulary, also gave rise to many doublets. One names the form resulting from the vulgar Latin “popular doublet”, that introduced artificially into the language starting from traditional or ecclesiastical Latin “erudite doublet”.

The words directly derived from Latin or borrowed thus underwent a evolution phonetic more important than the doublet more recent, which explains the differences of meaning and of meant, all the more important when the difference between the two words is wide in time. Here some examples (popular doublet ~ erudite doublet ← étymon Latin; the dates indicate the first known written certificate in French):

• chance (XIIe) ~ gives rhythm (XVIe, via the Italian ) ← cadentia (m) ;
• weak (XIe) ~ captive (XVe) ← captivu (m) ;
• to listen to (Xe) ~ to auscultate (XVIe) ← auscultare ;
• firm (XIIe) ~ firm (XIXe) ← firma (m) ;
• frail (XIe) ~ fragile (XIVe) ← fragile (m) ;
• hail (XIIe) ~ gracile (XVIe) ← gracile (m) ;
• hotel (XIe) ~ hospital (XIIe) ← hospitale (m) ;
• to chew (XIIe) ~ mastiquer (XVIe) ← masticare ;
• toe (XIIe) ~ article (XIIe) ← articulu (m) ;
• word (XIe) ~ parabola (XIIIe) ← parabola (m) ;
• poison (XIIe) ~ potion (XVIe) ← potione (m) ;
• reason (Xe) ~ ration (XIIIe) ← rations (m) .

To note that according to Ferdinand de Saussure in its Course of general linguistics , one cannot speak about doublet (or doubled bloom) coming from Latin. Indeed, the borrowed words are it for the majority of medieval Latin, somewhat artificial language, erudite, even rebuilt: in any case completely different from popular Latin from which part of French is resulting by slow evolution.

Other cases

The case of gourd ~ marrow represents another type of doublets since both are popular.

As opposed to what this article could let think, the phenomenon of the lexical doublets does not limit to the Romance Langues: in Japanese, for example, same English word strike (“blow” and “strike”), one obtains two loanwords, according to the direction, ストライク sutoraiku for a blow (with the Baseball) and ストライキ sutoraiki for a strike. This type of doublets, however, is rather distant from those of French: it is not phonetic question of evolution.

Related articles

• popular Etymology
• Etymology
• lexical Loan