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Ordinateur was not invented when computers came to the market. It was coined in its modern sense of computing machine, not by Proud French People Who Liked Thei
by notalaser 11y ago
Ordinateur was not invented when computers came to the market. It was coined in its modern sense of computing machine, not by Proud French People Who Liked Their Language but by IBM France, because they felt that "calculateur" (French for -- whaddya know! -- "something that computes", a literal equivalent for "computer") was too restrictive. In the 1950s, when that happened, "ordinateur" had been in use for a very long time. I don't know how common it was (I'm not a native French speaker), but it's certainly not a word they made up on the spot (it's of very obvious Latin origin), and they don't use it because they don't have a more appropriate word for "computer" (which they do -- "calculateur", which they deemed inappropriate because a "calculateur" could do a lot more than "calculer"; just like, indeed, a "computer" could do a lot more than "compute").
Many European languages had a local equivalent for "computer" long before electronic computers were around, and French is certainly not the only one that kept it.
- sevensor 11y agoA better example might be <<magnétoscope>>, which I learned means "VCR" when I studied French in the '90s. Edit: accent
- pygy_ 11y agoA natural counterpart to the magnétophone that plays audio tape (which itself probably derives from gramophone). Forced frenchified words that come to mind would be couriel for email, and mot-dièse (literally "sharp word") for "hash tag", when both English terms already are in common use.
- _ak 11y agoTélécopieur is one of my favourites, it's the fax machine. The fax, i.e. the piece of paper coming out, is the télécopie. Tele-copy, that's something I can get wrap my head around, it actually is a better derivation than from Latin facsimile.
- chrstphrhrt 11y agoMy fave in Québec is 'baladodiffusion' for podcast. Not sure if they say that in France too.
- LeoPanthera 11y agobaladodiffusion means "podcasting". podcast is "balado"
- jmnicolas 11y agoNo we don't. To be frank, podcasts are not a (big) thing here. I love how Quebecois are always inventing these funny french words, always put a smile on my face. I got to talk to my friends about 'baladodiffusions' but I'm not sure that they all know what a podcast is so I doubt they will appreciate this new word to its full extent.
- rawfan 11y agoWait, what? No Podcasting in France? Go start a Podcast ;)
- jmnicolas 11y agoAccording to Google there are French podcasts, and they are very popular ! I found an article from 2012 that said there was 20 millions podcasts downloads in France every month (we're a bit less than 70 millions French). I had no idea since nobody I know ever mentioned podcasts to me. Maybe they're all Luddites or they hide their podcast addiction well ;-) Me I exclusively listen to audio books (and I can recommend wholeheartedly the ones from Graphic Audio).
- Terr_ 11y agoSide note: It amuses me that "calculator" can be over-analyzed down to "small chalk pebble-token doing thing".
- rpgmaker 11y agoOrdenador is used in Spanish. From what you say it seems they just translated it from French.
- webreac 11y agoWe have also the word "informatique" which is not exactly computer science nor software engineering.
- rawfan 11y agoWe actually use that in German too. We don't have computer science at university, we call it Informatik. Checking out Wikipedia it seems you [borrowed](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informatique#.C3.89tymologie https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informatique#.C3.89tymologie) this mot-valise. ;)
- ern 11y agoThere is also Informatics in English (what BAs, System Analysts and Software Project Managers study in some parts of the world), but I'm not sure how it maps: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informatics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informatics