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by allanbz on January 19th, 2005

allanbz

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What is the origin of the French word "Qu'est-ce que c'est"?

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  • by Quinn Adkins on January 20th, 2005

    Quinn Adkins

    French features apostrophes (') in phrases where vowels or vowel sounds occur in words next to one another.
    The literal phrase would read: Quoi est ce que ce est?
    Or "What is this that it is?"
    In written French, this is too unwieldy, so it is shortened, with the use of apostrophes to denote the abbreviation: "Qu'est-ce que c'est", which is translated into English as "What is this?"

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  • by Don Quixote el Manchego on August 3rd, 2009

    Don Quixote el Manchego

    Hmmm... I think (totally guessing) that it's because french has come to rely on pronouns so heavily (perhaps due to the heavy Frankish influences). So saying just Quoi est? I think begs for some kind of pronoun and would only prompt the question, 'quoi est quoi?' without the right one. Which might even be satisfied with "ce" Quoi est ce? But 'ce' is not really a strong enough pronoun to hold the place of the thing being asked about. So the french went all the way. They could have gone as far as quoi est la chose qui est la chose qui est? Though in some sense, they kinda did go that far.
    Spanish still retains a "quid est" meaning in "que es?" and, technically, so does italian with che e. Though in italian, while a grammarian might let you off the hook for being technically right, people will expect to hear "che cosa e" Ultimately, I think that the strong Germanic influences in French along with the heavy pronoun reliance leads us up to modern french tomfoolery

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