charabia
Appearance
French
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Attested since at least 1838, originally to denote the incomprehensible talk of Auvergnats.
The further etymology is uncertain. It's believed to possibly mimick a perceived Auvergnat pronunciation of /s/ as /ʃ/. Others theorize it's derived from Occitan charrar (“to chatter”), or Franco-Provençal charabarat (horse market).
A borrowing from Spanish algarabía has been theorized but deemed less likely from a phonetic and geographic perspective.
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]charabia m (plural charabias)
- (colloquial) double Dutch
- gibberish
- Qu'est-ce que c'est que ce charabia?
- What is this gibberish?
- 2023, Fabcaro, Didier Conrad, L'iris blanc [Asterix and the White Iris] (Asterix), Vanves: Hachette, →ISBN, page 6:
- Qu'est-ce que c'est que ce charabia, ô Vicévertus, médecin-chef de mes armées ?
- (please add an English translation of this quotation)
- (obsolete) Auvergnat dialect
- (obsolete) An Auvergnat person
See also
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- “charabia”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
- charabia – CNTRL
Anagrams
[edit]Categories:
- French terms derived from Occitan
- French terms derived from Franco-Provençal
- French 3-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French terms with audio pronunciation
- French lemmas
- French nouns
- French countable nouns
- French masculine nouns
- French colloquialisms
- French terms with usage examples
- French terms with quotations
- French terms with obsolete senses
- fr:Dialects