New Post
Search
Help
ArchivesRe: Dangerosa Pronunciation
in reply to a message by Dangerosa
I saw a post on the name Dangerosa recently on a medieval history blog & will share info as best I can remember it...
- the French form is Dangereuse (roughly pronounced dahn-juh-ruhz with a soft "j" sound)
- it wasn't her given name but rather a nickname most likely given to her in childhood, with the inspiration being her personality (apparently this was a very common occurrence 1000 years ago in France!)
- dangereuse didn't mean "dangerous" until approx. the 16th century, prior to that the word most likely meant "disobedient" or "hard to please"
There weren't any citations given, so take it with a grain of salt, but it makes sense to me for several reasons:
- language evolves constantly and it's been 1000 years!
- there were two main French dialects: the 'langue d'oeil' in the north and the 'langue d'oc" in the south with Dangereuse & Eleanor & Richard Coeur-Lion (this is the origin for the south of France being known as the Languedoc Region today)
Last thought- I'm pretty sure that pronunciation wasn't uniform between the two 'langues' so Dangereuse may have pronounced her name differently than our best guess, since ours is based on modern French
Cool, eh?
~ alexicon
- the French form is Dangereuse (roughly pronounced dahn-juh-ruhz with a soft "j" sound)
- it wasn't her given name but rather a nickname most likely given to her in childhood, with the inspiration being her personality (apparently this was a very common occurrence 1000 years ago in France!)
- dangereuse didn't mean "dangerous" until approx. the 16th century, prior to that the word most likely meant "disobedient" or "hard to please"
There weren't any citations given, so take it with a grain of salt, but it makes sense to me for several reasons:
- language evolves constantly and it's been 1000 years!
- there were two main French dialects: the 'langue d'oeil' in the north and the 'langue d'oc" in the south with Dangereuse & Eleanor & Richard Coeur-Lion (this is the origin for the south of France being known as the Languedoc Region today)
Last thought- I'm pretty sure that pronunciation wasn't uniform between the two 'langues' so Dangereuse may have pronounced her name differently than our best guess, since ours is based on modern French
Cool, eh?
~ alexicon
1