[Avodah] Parlez Vous Old French?

[Arie Folger via Avodah]

RAM mentioned that:
> last week I saw Rashi at the very end of Shemos 12:11. After explaining
> the verb p-s-ch to mean skipping and jumping, he writes (as translated and
> explained by Rabbi Yisrael Isser Tzvi Herczeg, in ArtScroll's Rashi on
> Shemos): "And also [the Old French term for Passover,] *Pasche*, is an
> expression of stepping."

... and asked:
> How  do the French refer to Pesach in their language, now and/or 900
> years ago? And is that word more of a translation, or more of a
transliteration?

As you yourself wrote earlier in that post, the French call the holiday
paques (with an accent circonflexe on the a, but that renders badly on
Avodah). It is derived from the Latin, like the Spanish pascua, too.

I think that etymologies don't always need to be causative; they can also
be folk etymologies or pseudoetymologies. Rashi, or whoever added that
gloss, found a great vort on French, which allowed him to better convey the
meaning of the verb lifsoach to a French speaking audience. It is a stroke
of genius that serves its purpose well.

Kol tuv,
-- 
Arie Folger,
Recent blog posts on http://rabbifolger.net/

* Koscheres Geld (Podcast)
<http://rabbifolger.net/2016/02/15/koscheres-geld-podcast/>

* Kennt die Existenz nur den Chaos? G”ttliches Vorsehen im Jüdischen
Gedankengut (Podcast)
<http://rabbifolger.net/2016/02/14/kennt-die-existenz-nur-den-chaos-gttliches-vorsehen-im-judischen-gedankengut-podcast/>

* Halacha zum Wochenabschnitt: Baruch Hu uWaruch Schemo
<http://rabbifolger.net/2016/02/11/halacha-zum-wochenabschnitt-baruch-hu-uwaruch-schemo/>

* Is there Order to the World? Providence in Jewish Thought
<http://rabbifolger.net/2016/02/09/is-there-order-to-the-world-providence-in-jewish-thought/>

* What is Modern Orthodoxy (from a radio segment)
<http://rabbifolger.net/2016/02/08/what-is-modern-orthodoxy-from-a-radio-segment/>

<http://rabbifolger.net/2016/01/28/wir-missionieren-nicht-aber-warum-nicht/>
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