Re: Novel, Novella (was Re: Re: I'm new!)

On 23 Oct, Christophe Grandsire wrote:

>En réponse à Dan Sulani <dnsulani@...>:
>
>>
>>        In Israeli Hebrew,  a novel is also called "roman".
>> But, in addition, the word also means "to have a passionate
>> (although _not_  necessarily adulterous) affair with someone.
>> As in, "Have you heard? X is having a "roman" with Y!"
>
>In French, we have the word "romance" for this very same meaning. Funny
that
>love seems so much associated with Romance languages :)).
      I wonder, Christophe.
    Do the French (or the Spanish or the Italians or speakers
of any other Romance lang)  think that the _other_ Romance
langs ( = other than what they themselves speak as a native lang)
 have a special association with love?

BTW,
I just checked my trusty old Webster's English dictionary.
It claims that "romance" (as in "love") comes from Old French
"romanz", meaning to write,(it gives the translation as "escrire")
 and ultimately from Late (or Low)
 Latin, "romanice", which in turn comes from
the Latin "romanicus" and referred to the writing of popular
literature in the vernacular, instead of in  formal Latin.
 This was referred to (the dictionary says) as "writing in Roman".
And we all know what makes for really popular liturature! ;-)
    The dictionary gives "Romance" (as in languages) as
coming from the same source.

Dan Sulani

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likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.