The War of the ph/f Word - La Guerre du Nénuf(ph)ar
no copyright infringement intended(http://thedreamdragon.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html)
[Wars can be so cool sometimes! Thousands of deadly wounded, agonizing under a blazing sun, stinking to make you vomit your entrails, children with their smiles carbonized, half shredded by cluster bombs, plus the women with their young girls altogether, serially raped by terrible soldiers, as syphilitics as drunk dead... Yes, there is a certain diabolic beauty in all of it.... As for me, sick of these putrid pinnacles, the wars I prefer are those of flowers, styling with a thin hairdo the pretty wars of words. And the famous war of nénuphar versus nénufar is the apex, even more, the bouquet, for it exhales some sweet perfume from both at the same time, flower and word... Let me retrace it...]
Nenuphar
Noun: a water lily, especially the common white water lily (Nymphaea alba) or the yellow water lily (Nuphar luteum).
Etymology: Medieval Latin, from Arabic نلوفر (nilūfar), Persian نیلوفر (nīlūfar), from Sanskrit नीलोतपल (nīlotpala), from नील (nīla, which means blue) + उतपल (utpala, which means lotus, water-lily).
Arrived at the stall of a fruiterer, she bought Syrian apples, Osmani quinces, peaches from Uman, jasmine of Aleppo, Damascene nenuphars, cucumbers from the Nile, limes from Egypt, Sultani citrons, myrtle berries, flowers of henna, blood-red anemones, violets, pomegranate bloom, and the narcissus.
The Thousand Nights and One Night, tr. Powys Mathers, 1923
(see also The Porter and the Three Ladies from Baghdad)
Somewhere an iron curtain had gone up, baring a painted one, with nymphs and nenuphars.(see also The Porter and the Three Ladies from Baghdad)
Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire, 1962
-----
Thus, in English it seems that the nenuphar is under control. Nobody argues about its spelling, and ph is just ph, no more no less (to say nothing that the usual word is water lily).As for French, it's not that simple, and to make a long history short, almost everybody there writes nénuphar, this way commiting mortal sin after mortal sin, because the correct French norm would be nénufar: f instead of ph.
Now, almost everybody does not mean anybody. Let's put it this way: generally people don't care and use whichever comes first, nénuphar or nénufar, whatever; still there are some who care; for them it's the war of the two water lilies, and both ph and f have their partisans, fully committed.
I was completely unaware about all this stuff till the other day, when I posted on my blog a poem by Verlaine. The poem was Promenade Sentimentale, and it had plenty of room for the ph/f word:
...le vent berçait les nénuphars blêmes Les grands nénuphars, entre les roseaux ... les nénuphars, parmi les roseaux, Les grands nénuphars sur les calmes eaux.
Soon I got a short message from my sister Jill: Pierre, check this link; I got to it in googling nenuphar--
Nénuphar contre nénufar « Blog à mot: Nénuphar serait une erreur historique. L’Académie avait écrit nénufar avec un f jusqu’en 1935 en raison de son étymologie persane. Dans la huitième édition de leur dictionnaire, ils ont succombé à la tentation d’un rapprochement sémantique avec nymphe et nymphea, des mots d’origine grecque et ont ad...
and Jill concluded: I think it is safe! I love that stuff--orthography. (Should she better have written orthografy? Just wondering)
I tried the web site mentioned by Jill: some firewall blocked my access. It didn't look very promising, but I kept cool. Soon I found a first description of the problem. It was a French blog authored by someone who was signing Carmadou. He was quoting an entry from Le Dictionnaire Historique de la Langue Française d' Alain Rey (ed. Le Robert):
Nénuphar ou Nénufar: emprunté (XIII°s) au latin médiéval nenuphar, lui-même emprunté par l'intermédiaire de l'arabe au persan nilufar. Ce dernier est emprunté au sanskrit nilautpala (lotus bleu), composé de nila (bleu-noir) et utpala (fleur de lotus). En français, le mot est d'abord relevé sous la forme de neuphar, neufar, neuenufar au XII°s, réécrit nénuphar d'après le latin médiéval, la graphie étymologique nénufar étant aussi employée toujours (Littré, Proust) et faisant l'objet d'une recommandation officielle en 1990.
[Nénuphar or Nénufar: borrowed (13th century) from Medieval Latin nenuphar, where it had come through Arabic from Persian: nilufar. This last one is borrowed from the Sanskrit nilautpala (blue lotus), composed of nila (blue-black) and utpala (flower of lotus). In French, the word is firstly spelled neuphar, neufar, neuenufar in the 12th century, rewritten nénuphar after its medieval Latin form, while the etymological spelling nénufar has also been alwats in use (Littré, Proust), and became an official recommendation in 1990]
I went then to Wikipedia:
L'Académie française a écrit nénufar de 1762 jusqu'en 1935 (huitième édition de son Dictionnaire) et les rectifications orthographiques du français en 1990 préconisent de revenir à cette orthographe du fait de l'origine arabo-persane du mot (nīnūfar), car le digramme ph serait conforme avec une translittération du phi (φ) du grec ancien mais pas du fāʾ (ﻑ) arabe.
[French Academy wrote nénufar from 1762 till 1935 (eighth edition of its Dictionary) and the French orthographical corrections from 1990 recommend to return to this orthography because of its Arab-Persian origin (nīnūfar), as digraph ph would be in conformity with a transliteration of the phi (φ) of the Ancient Greek, but of the Arabic fāʾ (ﻑ)]
Wikipedia further:
En adoptant la graphie nénuphar dans la huitième édition de leur Dictionnaire (achevée en 1935), les Académiciens se seraient laissé aller à un rapprochement sémantique avec les nymphes (ces dernières partageant avec les nénuphars un attrait certain pour l’eau), mais également avec le genre Nymphaea, qui est celui de certains nénuphars. Émile Littré avait comme seule entrée nénufar où il dénonçait déjà l'orthographe nénuphar comme fautive étymologiquement (elle figurait néanmoins dans les dictionnaires de Thomas Corneille, Trévoux, Jean Nicot, Antoine Furetière).
[By adopting the spelling nénuphar in the eighth edition of their Dictionary (completed in 1935), the Academicians would have let themselves go to a semantic closeness with the nymphs (these ones sharing with the nénuphars an unquestionable attraction for water), while also with the Nymphaea gender, which some nénuphars belong too. Emile Littré had liked only entry, nénufar; he had already denounced the nénuphar as etymologically wrong (it had anyway appeared in the dictionaries of Thomas Corneille, Trévoux, Jean Nicot, Antoine Furetière)]
Was it that simple? No, look here:
Un autre genre de nénuphar est Nuphar, nommé en 1809 par le britannique James Edward Smith. L'orthographe du nom de ce genre laisse penser que la chose n'est pas aussi simple que ne le présentait Littré.
[Another kind of nénuphar is Nuphar, named in 1809 by the British James Edward Smith. The spelling lets one think that all this stuff is not as simple as Littré presented]
Also, good to know:
Par plaisanterie, on a appelé guerre du Nénufar ou guerre du Nénuphar les polémiques qui ont agité la France au début de l'année 1991 à propos des rectifications orthographiques. En 2005, une brochure exposant l'orthographe de 1990 a été éditée sous le titre Le millepatte sur un nénufar.
[Jokingly all this stuf was called War of Nénufar (or War of Nénuphar): the polemics agitating France at the beginning of 1991 in connection with the orthographical corrections. In 2005, a booklet exposing the orthography of 1990 was published under the title Le millepatte sur un nénufar]
To summarize:
- earliest evidence of the ph/f word: 12th century (neuph(f)ar, neunufar)
- 13th century: evidence of nénuph(f)ar form, as transplant from Medieval Latin (and indirectly Arab/Persian)
- alternative use of ph/f
- 1762: Academy sets nénufar as norm; alternative use of ph/f continues
- 1935: Academy changes the norm to nénuphar
- 1990: Academy sets the norm back to nénufar
- the war of the ph/f word goes on
So, nénuphar or nénufar? The norm is set today for f, while it has been set and reset a good couple of times throughout the last hundreds of years.
So, nénuphar or nénufar? The word came in French from Medieval Latin, which suggests somehow the Greek-Roman heritage, which suggests ph.
So, nénuphar or nénufar? Actually the word from Medieval Latin had Arab/Persian origin, which means f.
So, nénuphar or nénufar? The poem of Verlaine has the ph form: I used an edition from 1940, (when the Academic norm was ph anyway). I am pretty sure ph was also in the original edition of the Poèmes saturniens from 1866 (when the norm was f).
So, nénuphar or nénufar? I brought here an excerpt from Verlaine. As for Jill, I am sure she would bring an excerpt from Proust, and for good reason: throughout his pages French words get the sound of a Stradivarius (Proust being their Paganini).
Bientôt le cours de la Vivonne s'obstrue de plantes d'eau. Il y en a d'abord d'isolées comme tel nénufar à qui le courant au travers duquel il était placé d'une façon malheureuse laissait si peu de repos que, comme un bac actionné mécaniquement, il n'abordait une rive que pour retourner à celle d'où il était venu, refaisant éternellement la double traversée. Poussé vers la rive, son pédoncule se dépliait, s'allongeait, filait, atteignait l'extrême limite de sa tension jusqu'au bord où le courant le reprenait, le vert cordage se repliait sur lui-même et ramenait la pauvre plante à ce qu'on peut d'autant mieux appeler son point de départ qu'elle n'y restait pas une seconde sans en repartir par une répétition de la même manœuvre.
(Jill Rapaport)
(Marcel Proust)
(Paul Verlaine)
Labels: Jill Rapaport, Proust, Verlaine
posted by Pierre Radulescu at
2:32 AM
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