Note 26 — I

The French itself has also a double adoption, or as perhaps we should more accurately call it there, a double formation, from the Latin, and such as quite bears out what has been said above: one going far back in the history of the language, the other belonging to a later and more literary period; on which subject there are some admirable remarks by Génin, Récréations Philologiques, vol. i. pp. 162-66; and see Fuchs, Die Roman. Sprachen, p. 125. Thus from ‘separare’ is derived ‘sevrer’, to separate the child from its mother’s breast, to wean, but also ‘séparer’, without this special sense; from ‘pastor’, ‘pâtre’, a shepherd in the literal, and ‘pasteur’ the same in a tropical, sense; from ‘catena’, ‘chaîne’ and ‘cadène’; from ‘fragilis’, ‘frêle’ and ‘fragile’; from ‘pensare’, ‘peser’ and ‘penser’; from ‘gehenna’, ‘gêne’ and ‘géhenne’; from ‘captivus’, ‘chétif’ and ‘captif’; from ‘nativus’, ‘naïf’ and ‘natif’; from ‘designare’, ‘dessiner’ and ‘designer’; from ‘decimare’, ‘dîmer’ and ‘décimer’; from ‘consumere’, ‘consommer’ and ‘consumer’; from ‘simulare’, ‘sembler’ and ‘simuler’; from the low Latin, ‘disjejunare’, ‘dîner’ and ‘déjeûner’; from ‘acceptare’, ‘acheter’ and ‘accepter’; from ‘homo’, ‘on’ and ‘homme’; from ‘paganus’, ‘payen’ and ‘paysan’ [the latter from ‘pagensis’]; from ‘obedientia’, ‘obéissance’ and ‘obédience’; from ‘strictus’, ‘étroit’ and ‘strict’; from ‘sacramentum’, ‘serment’ and ‘sacrement’; from ‘ministerium’, ‘métier’ and ‘ministère’; from ‘parabola’, ‘parole’ and ‘parabole’; from ‘peregrinus’, ‘pélerin’ and ‘pérégrin’; from ‘factio’, ‘façon’ and ‘faction’, and it has now adopted ‘factio’ in a third shape, that is, in our English ‘fashion’; from ‘pietas’, ‘pitié’ and ‘piété’; from ‘capitulum’, ‘chapitre’ and ‘capitule’, a botanical term. So, too, in Italian, ‘manco’, maimed, and ‘monco’, maimed of a hand; ‘rifutáre’, to refute, and ‘rifiutáre’, to refuse; ‘dama’ and ‘donna’, both forms of ‘domina’.