In the new show from Europe 1, "Historically yours", Stéphane Bern examines the roots of an expression of everyday life.
Monday, he is interested in the origin of the expression "first cousin", which designates a person with whom we share a grandparent.
Stéphane Bern suggests every day, in
Historically yours
with Matthieu Noël, to discover these expressions that we use on a daily basis without necessarily knowing their origin.
Friday, the host tells us about the origin of the expression "first cousin".
The first thing to know is that this expression has nothing to do with our Germanic friends.
Our first cousins, with whom we have a common grandparent, and those "from siblings", with whom we have a common great-grandparent, are so named for an etymological reason.
Generally speaking, "germanus" comes from Latin and means "who is of the same blood".
The word "germain" has been used in French since the 12th century and comes from "germen" which means "germ".
Its Latin root has also given in Spanish "hermano" and "hermana" which mean brother and sister.
In Romania, we speak of "sweet cousin"
Using the word "germain" to denote a close cousin is specific to France.
In English we say "first cousin", understand "first cousin".
In Romania we speak poetically of "sweet cousin".
In Montreal, the expression “cousin of the left buttock” is also used to designate any member of the family in the broadest sense of the term.
The fact of using the word "germain" to designate a German comes from two Celtic words: "gair", which means neighbor, and "man" which means people.
That means literally "neighboring people".