French Translation

Heads up! More discussion could be used over at the LibraryThing in French group!

Speaking of translation ---

I was googling a phrase in French to verify my translation, and landed on a Wiki article about the 1968 demonstrations. It included a list of slogans used, and among them I was taken aback to see "Mort aux vaches!" --- translated as "Death to the pigs!" Did the Wiki contributor get the slogan wrong, or were the students advocating "Death to the cows!"? If the latter, what did they mean? (Or am I hopelessly wrong, and is vache somehow another word for pig/cochon?)

I can recall an old French teacher saying that "faites moi une fleur" meant "laissez-moi tranquille" in the 70s argot. Seems rather a fey request when translated as anything other than "leave me alone".

Vache indeed means cow, unless the French have come up with a hybrid - which I am sure they would prepare wonderfully. Perhaps the authors were trying to give it some context by translating its sense rather than its literal composition, as most of the protesters and Chuck Manson, and sundry hippie-kind on this side of the ocean made the phrase "death to the pigs!" as popular as any soft drink ad campaign slogan.

"Vache" ist an argot term for policeman, like "flic" or "poulet".

Etymologically it derives from German "Wache" (police station) and was first used in France in Alsace-Lorraine between 1870 and 1914.

>4 Ravic:

I am sorry, but saying "[...] and was first used in France in Alsace-Lorraine between 1870 and 1914." is rather unhistoric or even revisionistic, if you like.

Though after the Peace of Westphalia (1648) it was gradually annexed by France, Elsaß-Lothringen is ancient part of Regnum Francorum orientalium (finally the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation), from Ludwig the German (921) on.

After the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, the Treaty of Frankfurt confirmed the return of these areas to Germany in shape of the newly-founded German Empire.

A short-lived independence after World War I was ended by French troops in 1918 and the 1919 Treaty (Diktat) of Versailles.

As such, "[...] and was first used in France in Alsace-Lorraine between 1870 and 1914." is rather problematic, for at that time, "Alsace-Lorraine" was not annexed by France, but was part of the German Empire indeed.

As for the etymology, one of the German argot words is "Bulle" (en: bull). Quelle coincidence !

Thanks!

I'll be darned; more Yankee-isms seeping into French, eh? 15 years later, when I (doing my tourist thing) stumbled into the middle of "les manifs" and under a CRS truncheon, the natives who rescued me taught me "les cochons fascistes." (Hope I spelled that right.)

Edited to correct stupid error.

> 5
Well, at that time, the bigger part of Lorraine was still french. The german portion was Alsace(excluding Belfort) and Moselle.So "in France, in Alsace-Lorraine between 1870 and 1914" may mean somewhere near Nancy or Belfort. (or just as it means today, "near the German border")

benwaugh: Faites-moi une fleur is more like Do me a favour, it seems to me.

overthemoon: And to think I spent ten years paying back my student loans, bleeding hell.

>5 boekerij:

I have to say, as a Franchman born in "Lorraine" (more precisely in Moselle), that you are historically right, but culturally wrong.
Afterwards, we can say that the regions Alsace and Moselle were French, even between the 1870s and 1918.

Please understand that saying that this point of view is revisionitic sounds weird to me.

Oh, by the way, people (like my Grandmother) spoke "Platt" at that time : French grammar with a half of German vocabulary... Please, if you ever meet my Grandma, don't tell her she's German, she might (try to) beat you down with her purse.