Description

The fascinating history of French words that have entered the English language

English has borrowed more words from French than from any other modern foreign language. French words and phrases--such as à la mode, ennui, naïveté and caprice--lend English a certain je-ne-sais-quoi that would otherwise elude the language. Richard Scholar examines the continuing history of untranslated French words in English and asks what these words reveal about the fertile but fraught relationship that England and France have long shared and that now entangles English- and French-speaking cultures all over the world. At a moment of resurgent nationalism, Émigrés invites native Anglophone readers to consider how much we owe the French language and why so many of us remain ambivalent about the migrants in our midst.

"A well-researched, convincing account of how our language has welcomed foreign words--but not always their native speakers."--Kirkus Reviews

"Erudite, witty, and surprisingly timely."--Publishers Weekly

"This is a beautiful piece of work--and a book we need. Without relation there is no living, the living is relation, every living language is relation."--Patrick Chamoiseau, author of Migrant Brothers and Texaco