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I agree that the same sound as "let" or "bet" is more euphonius. I had been surmising someone was suggesting it should be like "beet"!

> no "Swiss patois"

Tell that to my sister, who lives there! There are arguably several forms of patois as all the languages merge and attach themselves to core elements of each other in typical patois style. You haven't seen disdain until faced by a 'High German' speaker sneering at the yokels speaking "this low barbarian speech", or the Italians spluttering at the indignities foisted on 'the beautiful tongue' ~ and as for the French...!

a. F. crétin (in Encycl. 1754), ad. Swiss patois crestin, creitin:—L. ChristiQnum Christian, which in the mod. Romanic langs. (as sometimes dial. in Eng.) means ‘human creature’ as distinguished from the brutes; the sense being here that these beings are really human, though so deformed physically and mentally. (Cf. natural.) So, according to Hatzfeld and Darmesteter, the Cagots are called in Béarn crestiaas.]

One of a class of dwarfed and specially deformed idiots found in certain valleys of the Alps and elsewhere. Also in weakened sense (esp. in form crétin): a fool, one who behaves stupidly. Also attrib. and transf.
1779 W. Coxe in Ann. Reg. ii. 92 note, The species of idiots I have mentioned+who are described by many authors as peculiar to the Vallais, are called Cretins. 1834 Medwin Angler in Wales I. 239 The Cretin is hardly a human being+They have all immense heads and more immense goitres. 1879 Khorz Princ. Med. 4 The offspring of persons with goître are cretins without goître. 1884 W. James Coll. Ess. & Rev. (1920) 270 Bodily commotions+may be experienced in their fulness by Crétins and Philistines in whom the critical judgment is at its lowest ebb. a1930 D. H. Lawrence Pornography (1936) 75 The blood in the body stands still, before such crétin ugliness. 1933 J. Joyce Let. 13 Aug. (1966) III. 282 The crétin of a concierge+has misdirected half my mail. 1961 I. Jefferies It wasn't Me ix. 123, I know I'm a moron and a cretin like you're always calling people.

Hence "cretinage.
1820 H. Matthews Diary of Invalid 314 Cretinage seems also to be peculiar to mountainous regions.


OED2


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surmising someone was suggesting it should be like "beet"!

As well you might, being that is the standard USn pronunciation, at least if you believe AHD4 and MWwhatever and me.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/35/C0743500.html

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=cretin&x=15&y=18



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patois

[F.; ‘origin unknown’ (Hatz.-Darm.), see conjectures in Diez and Littré.]

a. Properly, a dialect (esp. in France or French Switzerland) spoken by the common people in a particular district, and differing materially from the literary language. In England, sometimes used loosely as a contemptuous designation for a provincial dialect or form of speech.
French scholars distinguish dialects as the particular forms presented by a language in different regions, so long as there does not exist a common written language. When a common language has become established as the medium of general literature, the dialects lose their literary standing and become patois.
1643 Sir T. Browne Relig. Med. ii. §8 The Jargon and Patois of severall Provinces. 1789 Mrs. Piozzi Journ. France, etc. I. 314 At Venice, the sweetness of the patois is irresistible. 1832 tr. Sismondi's Ital. Rep. iii. 65 The Italian language, spoken at his court, first rose above the patois in common use throughout Italy. 1851 Mayne Reid Scalp Hunt. xx. 142 Their language was a Spanish patois. 1893 F. C. Selous Trav. S.E. Africa 7 The Dutch patois spoken in South Africa.

b. transf.
1790 Burke Fr. Rev. Wks. V. 197 Their language is in the patois of fraud. 1880 Standard 10 Dec., A fashion+of introducing children in novels who talk an impossible gibberish utterly unlike real baby patois.

c. The folk or Creole speech of the English-speaking Caribbean (esp. Jamaica).
1934 J. Rhys Voy. in Dark i. vi. 83 She said something in patois and went on washing up. 1953 Caribbean Q. III. i. 24 The hybrid dialects of French origin which in philology come under the heading Creole. In Trinidad the word used to denote these dialects is Patois. 1970 Caribbean Stud. July 108 Patois, used by many Jamaicans in reference to Jamaican Creole. 1971 Caribbean Q. XVII. ii. 13 Same name, different referent+patois.

d. attrib. or as adj. Of, pertaining to, or of the nature of a patois or illiterate dialect.
1789 C. Smith Ethelinde (1814) III. 138 ‘Alas’ cried she, in a patois dialect, between French and Spanish. 1799 H. More Fem. Educ. (ed. 4) I. 103 To ascertain that she has nothing patois in her dialect. 1809–12 M. Edgeworth Mme. de Fleury x, She+remembered his patois accent. a1894 M. Dyan All in a Man's K. (1899) 90 His powers of conversation in patois Pushtoo.


OED2

Strangely, I had picked it up to be almost synonymous with a creole but would not have drawn the clear distinction with literary norms.


#116315 02/06/04 05:39 PM
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wow, so that was right? You do actually use that form? Does it vary over the States? And any idea how that came to be the accepted standard - it seems a bit odd, given the origin, doesn't it?


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Tell that to my sister, who lives there!

OK, give me her email address! ;) But I meant there are no Swiss patois (what is the plural?). Sure there's loads of French, German, and Italian dialects (patois). I collected a bunch of Swiss German jokes and riddles for my folklore class in college. A friend's grandfather, though born in the US of A, was a fluent speaker. I thought it was beatiful on its own merits.

You haven't seen disdain until faced by a 'High German' speaker sneering at the yokels speaking "this low barbarian speech"

Oh, yes, I have! While studying the local dialect in Bonn in 1985 (and subsequent trips) [called Bönnsch], I was taken aside by a college student who chastised me for encouraging these people from propogating their mongrel German. The irony that one of the earliest printing presses was in Cologne [where they speak and drink Kösch] and that nearly a third of the books were published in the local dialect was lost on her. And this before High German had become standardized. Bönnsch and Kölsch are beautiful languages, quite alive and safe for the moment.


#116317 02/06/04 05:45 PM
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The original French sound is, to the best of my knowledge, somewhere between an unglided version of a long A and the short e that y'all seem to prefer. It did enter English rather late to have undergone the Great Vowel Shift*. However, the brick and mortar OED seems to indicate that the sound is the same as the vowel sound in thief. So what's y'all's excuse?

*That's Shift not Movement. Nothing to do with Finno-Ugric.


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Well, let's see: a dialect is a language without an army or a navy. A creole develops from a pidgin. Patois has the meanings you listed. It's confusing. Swiss German has an orthography, so I guess it's not a patois.


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I had been surmising someone was suggesting it should be like "beet"!

That's what I said: /kritIn/.


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> Oh, yes, I have!

LOL! Isn't it interesting how passionately ideas of identity and self-worth get externalised in language issues?

As for excuse, Fong, the only one I need right now is why I ain't home cookin' supper! Have a good weekend, all y'all ;)


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Swiss German has an orthography

Seems like the patois of which mav spoke was an amalgamation of German, French and Italian. Sort of a mini-Europanto.


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