Les problèmes méthodologiques de l’étymologie d’origine gauloise en français

Abstract

It is a well-known fact that the etymology of the French lexicon is mostly Latin. But this apparently obvious consideration hides a signifi cant amount of unsure, if not biased, etymologies. This paper aims fi rst at criticizing the laxity of the etymological method : use of reconstructed vulgar Latin and old Frankish etymons upon unclear principles, huge distortions of meaning, phonetic irregularities, ignorance of the historical context, etc. In a second time, this paper aims at showing that the neglected Gaulish substratum can sometimes afford better explanations to some of these doubtful and impressionistic etymologies, and proposes new etymologies based upon attested Gaulish etymons.

Keywords

• historical linguistics
• etymology
• French
• Gaulish
• vulgar Latin
• Old Frankish