# How did "jury" (noun) make it into French?



## theagx

a French noun?

As a former learner of French, and now an observer of its frequent borrowing (or rather, keeping) of English words, I'm no longer surprised by the amount of English words in French. You can even rhyme in French IN ENGLISH (j'ai vu un flash, c'etait un crash, j'ecrivais un slash....). 

Anyway, I would have thought that French would have a word for "jury". It turns out, they just say "le jury". I'm pretty sure I remember seeing "le jurie" once as a kid??? 

Even if it is a borrowing, Frenchizing "le jury" to "le jurie" would be very easy to do. Maybe French people just like the fact that the word looks English, as they feel English is a better, more stylish, cooler language.

EDIT: they had "le juré", but decided to replace that ONE LAST LETTER in order to add to their list of anglicisms. What the hell is wrong with the French and preferring English? For the sake of one letter, they replaced "le juré" with "le jury". For what good reason?


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## fdb

This might answer your question:

http://www.cnrtl.fr/etymologie/jury


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## francisgranada

How is this "jury" pronounced in French?

(in Hungarian there is _zsűri _which is a phonetical transcription of a supposed French _jury/jurie_ and not that of the English _jury_)


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## atcheque

Bonjour,


francisgranada said:


> How is this "jury" pronounced in French?



*Prononc. : *[ʒyʀi]


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## CapnPrep

theagx said:


> EDIT: they had "le juré", but decided to replace that ONE LAST LETTER in order to add to their list of anglicisms. What the hell is wrong with the French and preferring English? For the sake of one letter, they replaced "le juré" with "le jury". For what good reason?


It is useful to have _juré_ and _jury_ as distinct terms, referring to one person vs to a group. What the hell is wrong with that?


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## killerbee256

theagx said:


> ... now an observer of its frequent borrowing (or rather, keeping) of English words, I'm no longer surprised by the amount of English words in French. You can even rhyme in French IN ENGLISH (j'ai vu un flash, c'etait un crash, j'ecrivais un slash....).


Not to nitpick but you've got it backwards, those aren't English words in French rather French worlds in English. You can thank William the conquer for that. You might be interested in this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_French .


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## theagx

CapnPrep said:


> It is useful to have _juré_ and _jury_ as distinct terms, referring to one person vs to a group. What the hell is wrong with that?



So which is which? Are they interchangeable?

Which are correct?:

Les membres du jury
Les membres du juré.
Je suis un jury.
Je suis un juré.


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## theagx

killerbee256 said:


> Not to nitpick but you've got it backwards, those aren't English words in French rather French worlds in English. You can thank William the conquer for that. You might be interested in this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_French .



_En francais, on appelle ca un best-of. Je fais du fooding avec beaucoup du feeling dans ma garden party au coté de la femme qui s'applique de l'eyeliner. Elle a taché - en mangeant un hot dog avec du ketchup - son T shirt, son blazer, son jean  et ses baskets. __Quel desordre! __Maintenant, elle ne peut pas aller a faire du surfing. Paul n'a pas vu el desordre parce qu'il mangeait dans le mess. C'est mon job d'investir dans des big businesses, comme des films et d'interviewer les stars. C'est beaucoup du stress! Il faut passer beaucoup des tests. Mon hobby est diriger mon holding. Nous faison du hosting. Miley Circus est une grande PEOPLE._

At least in English we anglicized our borrowings. Boeuf is not beef. I admit, it was probably easier to change spellings back before spellings were standardized, before dictionaries, etc. I don't see French frenchizing any of the English borrowings to be borrowed over the last 100 years.

Except le rally, which has an e - le rallye - on the end to make it "French-looking".


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## CapnPrep

theagx said:


> So which is which? Are they interchangeable?


As you already know, _le jury_ is the jury. _Un juré_ is a juror or juryman. This information can be found in any French dictionary, starting with the ones right here on WR.


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## killerbee256

theagx said:


> _En francais, on appelle ca un best-of. Je fais du fooding avec beaucoup du feeling dans ma garden party au coté de la femme qui s'applique de l'eyeliner. Elle a taché - en mangeant un hot dog avec du ketchup - son T shirt, son blazer, son jean  et ses baskets. __Quel desordre! __Maintenant, elle ne peut pas aller a faire du surfing. Paul n'a pas vu el desordre parce qu'il mangeait dans le mess. C'est mon job d'investir dans des big businesses, comme des films et d'interviewer les stars. C'est beaucoup du stress! Il faut passer beaucoup des tests. Mon hobby est diriger mon holding. Nous faison du hosting. Miley Circus est une grande PEOPLE._


You are correct about many of these being loans so I'll just point out the ones the came from french first; Hobby is from old french _hobi _thought originally from Germanic, Stress is from old fernch as well, as is Test, Host is from old french, Mess is from old french _mets,_ People is from old french _pueple, peuple, pople_


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## L'irlandais

Hello theagx,
As others have said, it's a bit of a "chicken & egg" situation ;  Juré appears in French circa 1200
while (as pointed out in #02 above) one has to wait until 1588 for a written occurence in English of jury.  The word came from French, but the meaning shifted, before more recently (1877) coming back home again to France.


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## berndf

L'irlandais said:


> Hello theagx,
> As others have said, it's a bit of a "chicken & egg" situation ;  Juré appears in French circa 1200
> while (as pointed out in #02 above) one has to wait until 1588 for a written occurence in English of jury.  The word came from French, but the meaning shifted, before more recently (1877) coming back home again to France.


1588 is the first attestation of of the loan _jury_ meaning _jury_ (and not _juré_) in* French*, not in English.

Please note, as CapnPrep pointed out, that _jury_ and _juré_ are different words (and always have been). The word _jury _was first attested in the 13th century spelled _jure _or _juree _in Anglo-French, (derived directly from Latin and not via French) and later in Middle-English and always meant _jury_ and never _juror_. The French noun _juré_ developed independently and always referred to an individual person and never to a body of jurors.


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## francisgranada

I have the feeling that all the "problem" is about the orthography: if it were _jurie _(not _jury_) in the present day French, then this question would probably not arise ...  (see e.g. the Italian _giuria_)

As to the original question, _jury _is not a modern anglicism in the sense:


> they had "le juré", but decided to replace that ONE LAST LETTER in order to add to their list of anglicisms.


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## CapnPrep

francisgranada said:


> I have the feeling that all the "problem" is about the orthography: if it were _jurie _(not _jury_) in the present day French, then this question would probably not arise ...  (see e.g. the Italian _giuria_)


But how do you feel about _giurì_? Doesn't it feel more foreign than _giuria_? And yet its orthography is completely Italianized.


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## francisgranada

CapnPrep said:


> But how do you feel about _giurì_? Doesn't it feel more foreign than _giuria_? And yet its orthography is completely Italianized.


 Regardless of the real history or etymology of this word, my spontaneous feeling about _giurì _is that it has to be an older loan word from French. If it were a "modern" loan from English, then I should expect the orthography "jury" (even in Italian) and the accent on the syllable _ju_ (_giu)_. In case of _giuria _(again, regardless of the real origin and history of this word) I should sponaneousely suppose (or "feel") a Latin origin (*_iuria_) even if such a word is not documented or did not exist at all.

What I wanted to say is that perhaps in case of _jury, _the orthography of this word seems to be misleading to _theagx_, i.e. it seems to be not "enough" French but rather English. As if the French _jury _were necessarily a modern loan of the English _jury,_ because of the _-y_ at the end_. _At least, this is my impression  ...


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## fdb

The point (which does not really seem to have been taken on board here) is that the jury system originated in England. That is why other nations have borrowed the English word.


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## francisgranada

fdb said:


> The point (which does not really seem to have been taken on board here) is that the jury system originated in England. That is why other nations have borrowed the English word.


Maybe not all, see my post #3, but also the Slovak pronounciation is nearer to the French one.
If I'm not mistaken, in German the word _Jury _is also pronounced like in French (more or less).


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## theagx

fdb said:


> This might answer your question:
> 
> http://www.cnrtl.fr/etymologie/jury



[/QUOTE]*Étymol. et Hist. 1. 1588 « réunion de jurés d'un tribunal de justice (en Angleterre) » (Apologie de l'exécution de Marie Stuard ds Fonds Barbier : Voicy le dernier mot que j'ay délibéré de te donner à entendre, à sçavoir juri, que j'ay tourné par les douze hommes jurez en tel cas); 2. 1790 « id. (en France) » (Gazette nationale, ou le Moniteur universel, 6 avril 1790, 394 b ds Höfler Anglic.) aussi sous la forme juré (Décrets organiques de la Constitution, Moniteur, 3 janvier 1791, ibid., p. 90);*[/QUOTE]

Anglicism.

So it appears that English once borrowed a few French words and adapted them, anglicized them, and now the French are reborrowing these same words (and more) and replacing their own words with these anglicisms. Not only that, but they aren't adapting them to the French language.

_Le toast et le bacon sont brulés mais j'ai encore mon milkshake. Il y a beaucoup de suspense. Je me sens comme un reporter. Mais ceci n'est pas un histoire du showbiz._


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## berndf

francisgranada said:


> Maybe not all, see my post #3, but also the Slovak pronounciation is nearer to the French one.
> If I'm not mistaken, in German the word _Jury _is also pronounced like in French (more or less).


The pronunciation might have come under French influence (though even that isn't clear but I won't argue) but the word is clearly spread as an English term in European languages. The concept as such was uniquely English until the end of the the 18th century (France was the first to introduce the jury system in 1790). In German, the word is still only used for the English jury system and in its extended meaning _panel of judges in competition_, a meaning that was introduced only in the late 19th century.


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## berndf

theagx said:


> So it appears that English once borrowed a few French words and adapted them, anglicized them, and now the French are reborrowing these same words (and more) and *replacing their own words with these anglicisms*. Not only that, but they aren't adapting them to the French language.


Please. It has been said many times now: French never had a word for _jury _before it borrowed the English word, simply because the very concept of a _jury _only existed in England at the time. * There was nothing to replace*. The French word _juré _never ever meant _jury _nor does it today.




theagx said:


> So it appears that English once borrowed a few French words and adapted them...


The word originated in _Anglo-French_, a language in its own right and not the same as _French_, and the language of the English legal system until the 16th century (introduction of "Chancery" English in high courts started around 1430 and hadn't been completed before the end of the 16th century).


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## theagx

berndf said:


> The concept as such was uniquely English until the end of the the 18th century (France was the first to introduce the jury system in 1790)



What? If it was uniquely English, how was France the first to introduce the jury system? I'm confused.


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## theagx

berndf said:


> Please. It has been said many times now: French never had a word for _jury _before it borrowed the English word, simply because the very concept of a _jury _only existed in England at the time. * There was nothing to replace*. The French word _juré _never ever meant _jury _nor does it today.
> 
> The word originated in Anglo-French, a language in its own right and not the same as _French_, and the language of the English legal system until the 16th century.[/COLOR]



juror = le juré
jury = le jury (angl.), les jurés

if the "jury system" didn't exist in French before the English invented it, then I wonder why the French didn't borrow "juror" too. It seems like they had a translation "ready" for juror but not for jury. I wonder why "le juré, les jurés" wasn't enough of a distinction.

Spanish has "el jurado" (juror, un juré) and "los jurados" (jury, les jurés), although a quick google shows that "el jury" is used by some media.


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## berndf

There is still a subtle difference in meaning between _jurés_ and _jury_ which usually isn't important but which can matter in certain contexts: The former is a (any) group of jurors, the latter is the body they form in a particular trial.


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## CapnPrep

theagx said:


> if the "jury system" didn't exist in French before the English invented it, then I wonder why the French didn't borrow "juror" too. It seems like they had a translation "ready" for juror but not for jury.


Actually, French already had both _jureur_ and _juré_ as regular derivations from the verb _jurer_. This last point is important, because in English _juror_ and _jury_ are not connected with any verb. In _jury_, in particular, the suffix _-y_ has no regular meaning and speakers probably consider the word to be undecomposable. And it makes sense for it to remain undecomposable in French, and keeping the English spelling _jury_ achieves this. Frenchifying the form to _jurie_ would suggest the structure _jur-_ + _-ie_, which does not conform to French morphology. _-ie_ does not attach to verb stems like this: you can't take _manger_ and _aimer_ and make *_mangie _and *_aimie_, for example. Still, it would have been a possible solution (cf. Italian _giuria_).

Other possible solutions would have been to go back to the etymological origins of _jury_ and translate it as _la jurée_ or make it masculine _le juré _(cf. Spanish _el jurado_, which has both singulative and collective meanings). Or choose a different derivation of the root _jur-_ (e.g. the TLF mentions _jurande_).

All of these would have been possible outcomes, and French happens to have settled (for now) on _jury_. You seem to feel that this was the wrong decision, but it's not clearly worse than the other options.


theagx said:


> I wonder why "le juré, les jurés" wasn't enough of a distinction.


I wonder why English speakers keep using _jury_ instead of just replacing it with _jurors_.


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## Ben Jamin

CapnPrep said:


> I wonder why English speakers keep using _jury_ instead of just replacing it with _jurors_.



You can find millions of lexical decisions in the world languages which have no other explanation than fortuity followed by custom.
In this case the custom must have had a decisive role.


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## funnyhat

theagx said:


> At least in English we anglicized our borrowings.



Not always.  Consider _déjà vu_, _savoir-faire_, _rendez-vous, garage, façade _… even _je ne sais quoi_.


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## berndf

theagx said:


> What? If it was uniquely English, how was France the first to introduce the jury system? I'm confused.


Is this


berndf said:


> The concept as such was uniquely English until  the end of the the 18th century (France was the first to introduce *copy *the  jury system in 1790)


better?


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