X-Nico

16 unusual facts about French


Anglo-French

Anglo-French is a term used in contexts involving France and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK).

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Nationality – a person with one English parent and one French parent may be said to be Anglo-French

Cariso

Cariso singers, called chantwells, sang primarily in French creole.

Chanté mas

Lyrics are almost all in French creole and are traditionally sung by women (chantwell), while the instrumental tradition are predominantly practiced by men

Colin H. Williams

He began his PhD research on 'Language Decline and Nationalist Resurgence' comparing the Welsh and Québécois situation.

Dans une galaxie près de chez vous

The series chronicles the long, futuristic voyage of a team of Québécois space explorers looking for a planet capable of sustaining life, in the year 2034, after the destruction of the ozone layer through excessive human pollution, prompting the need for a new planet to welcome humankind.

François-Albert Angers

François-Albert Angers (May 21, 1909 – July 14, 2003) was an eminent Québécois economist and defender of the cause of Quebec and the French language.

French's

They also were a prominent sponsor of the Rochester Red Wings baseball club, often in conjunction with a local brand of hot dogs, Tobin's First Prize.

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In 1970, the company purchased Widmer Wine Cellars of Naples, New York.

Gulden's

Gulden's, a brand of American mustard, is the third largest American manufacturer of mustard, after French's and Grey Poupon.

Hubert Gagnon

He is best known as the voice of Homer Simpson in the Quebec version of The Simpsons, the voice of Mel Gibson in many movies, and also the character Picabo on the québécois TV show Les Oraliens.

Joseph Meek

As the French trappers enjoyed good relations with most of the Indian tribes in the area, Meek seems to have hoped that the Indians would take him for a Québécois and leave him alone.

Mirliton

Chayote or mirliton (French Creole - also mirleton), a pear-shaped vegetable or its vine

Ramón Mujica Pinilla

He has written books on the mystical intellectual sources of St. Rose of Lima, the first saint of the Americas, and on the political dimensions of her Creole and Indian cult that prepared the ground for Peru's political Independence from Spain in 1821.

Robert Marien

Robert Marien, born May 5, 1956, is a Québécois (Canadian) actor, singer, and songwriter who has performed in the musical Les Misérables in Montreal, Paris, New York and London.

Strathcona, Alberta

This mixed community of British (especially Orkney), Québécois, Cree and Metis fur trade employees, pioneer farmers, hunters, and their families, was mostly replaced by eastern Canadian pioneer farmers (and land speculators) in the 1880s.


Alain Lanty

He has composed songs for a great number of French artists including Renaud, Florent Pagny, Marc Lavoine, Dani, Régine, Maurane, Hélène Ségara, Jean-Luc Lahaye.

Albert Spaier

Studying at the Sorbonne, he volunteered to fight for the French at the outset of World War I, and became a French citizen soon afterwards.

August von Werder

Promoted general of infantry, and assigned to command the new XIVth Army Corps, Werder defeated the French at Dijon and at Nuits, and, when Charles Denis Bourbaki's army moved forward to relieve Belfort, turned upon him and fought the desperate action of Battle of Villersexel, which enabled him to cover the Germans besieging Belfort.

Biotite

Biotite was named by J.F.L. Hausmann in 1847 in honour of the French physicist Jean-Baptiste Biot, who, in 1816, researched the optical properties of mica, discovering many unique properties.

Chappe et Gessalin

Chappe et Gessalin (CG) was a French automobile maker founded in 1946 which commenced manufacturing complete cars in Brie-Comte-Robert, Seine-et Marne in 1957.

Charles Eloi Demarquet

Among his notable descendants are his own oldest son, Carlos, an Ecuadorian politician who served as Quito's cantonal leader (Jefe Politico) from 1886 to 1892, and the French historian and Academician Jean-Jacques Chevallier.

Château de Brissac

The second battle was between Pierre Gagnaire and Iron Chef French Hiroyuki Sakai, with theme ingredient lobster, and was won by Gagnaire.

Christina Bauer

She was born in Bergen, Norway during a Christmas holiday to a French father, Jean-Luc Bauer, a professional volleyball player, and a Norwegian mother, Tone Bauer, a handball player who played several years in France.

Christophe Cuvillier

Christophe Cuvillier (born December 5, 1962 in Etterbeek) is a French businessman and current chief executive officer of the European real-estate group Unibail-Rodamco.

Debacq

Charles-Alexandre Debacq (1804-1863), a French historical and portrait painter.

Demographics of Suriname

Dutch (official), Sranan Tongo (Surinamese, sometimes called Taki-Taki, is native language of Creoles and much of the younger population), Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu), Javanese, English (widely spoken), French due to cultural influence from French Guiana, Portuguese and Spanish.

EFEO Chinese transcription

The Chinese transcription of the École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO) was the most used phonetic transcription of Chinese in the French speaking world until the middle of the 20th century.

Entrevaux

The remaining population staged an uprising, cutting the throat of the governor, and offered the town to the French Dauphin, King François I.

French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation

INRIA is a Public Scientific and Technical Research Establishment (EPST) under the double supervision of the French Ministry of National Education, Advanced Instruction and Research and the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry.

Hillside Beach, Manitoba

During the fur trading expeditions of the Voyageurs and Coureur des bois the lagoon was part of a portage for traveling between the Winnipeg River and Lake Winnipeg en route from French eastern Canada to the Red River Valley, avoiding the long often choppy route around Elk Island.

Institut national des sciences appliquées

There are 5 INSA establishments organised as a network and located in major French regional cities Lyon, Rennes, Rouen, Strasbourg and Toulouse.

Jean Elichagaray

Jean Baptiste Pierre Eugène Elichagaray (September 3, 1886 – June 8, 1987) was a French rower who competed in the men's eights event at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm.

Jean III de Grailly, captal de Buch

While attempting to lift the siege of Soubise his force was surprised by a French force led by Owain Lawgoch, a Welsh soldier of fortune in the French service.

Jean Ragnotti

Jean "Jeannot" Ragnotti (born 29 August 1945 in Pernes-les-Fontaines, Vaucluse), is a French former rally driver for Renault in the World Rally Championship.

Jean-François Berdah

He is co-founder and chief-editor of the Revue d'Histoire Nordique since 2005, a bilingual French-English historical review dedicated to the history and civilisation of both Scandinavia and the Baltic countries, and director of the Centre of Excellence Jean Monnet of the University of Toulouse II-Le Mirail.

Jean-Jacques Ampère

Moving to Paris, he taught at the Sorbonne, and became professor of the history of French literature at the Collège de France.

Jean-Louis Jaley

Jean-Louis Nicolas Jaley (born in Paris in 1802, died in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1866) was a French sculptor.

Jean-Paul Bertrand-Demanes

Jean-Paul Bertrand-Demanes (born 13 May 1952 in Casablanca, Morocco) is a former football goalkeeper from France, who earned eleven international caps for the French national team during the 1970s and was part of the French team in the 1978 FIFA World Cup.

Joseph Spear

Service with the Mediterranean Fleet followed, commanding ships of the line and blockading the French in Toulon.

Julius Grey

Grey defended La servante écarlate by Margaret Atwood, the French version of The Handmaid's Tale, in the French version of Canada Reads, broadcast on Radio-Canada in 2004.

Khadja Nin

Her breakthrough, however, came in 1996 with her widely popular album Sambolera, which was sung in Swahili, Kirundi, and French.

L'Appel du silence

L'Appel du Silence is a 1936 French film directed by Leo Poirier based on the life of Charles de Foucauld.

Lewis A. Coser

In contrast, the non-coincidence of economic and political disenfranchisement among Quebecers reduces somewhat the severity of their conflict with English Canada, especially with the rising prosperity of the French Canadian new middle class operating in the public sector and corporate world.

Milieu

Milieu is the word for environment in French, and, for hundreds of years, also in Dutch, German, Swedish, Danish, English, and other languages that were strongly influenced by French culture and French language, primarily during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Montmorency, Victoria

Montmorency was named after a local farm, Montmorency Estate, which in turn was named for the town of Montmorency, Val-d'Oise, where the French Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau lived briefly.

Morry Taylor

In February 2013, Taylor met harsh criticism in France after a letter he wrote to the French minister of industrial renewal, Arnaud Montebourg.

Piano nobile

The piano nobile (Italian, "noble floor" or "noble level", also sometimes referred to by the corresponding French term, bel étage) is the principal floor of a large house, usually built in one of the styles of classical renaissance architecture.

Pierre Bellocq

Pierre Camille Lucien Hilaire Jean Bellocq (born November 25, 1926 in Bedenac, Charente-Maritime, France) is a French-American artist and horse racing cartoonist known as "Peb".

Pointe-Noire

Congolese oil has been largely exploited by the French company Elf Aquitaine since its discovery around 1980.

Potentilla delphinensis

It is endemic to France, where it is limited to the southern French Alps (Savoie et Dauphiné: Bauges; Isère; Hautes-Alpes, Col du Lautaret).

Punta Bagnà

Administratively the mountain is divided between the Italian comune of Bardonecchia (southern face) and the French communes of Modane (north-western face) and Avrieux (north-eastern face).

Roads Committee

In Jersey, the Roads Committee (French: Comité des Chemins) is the highway authority for Parish roads in each Parish.

Robert Falk

During the Khrushchev Thaw Falk became popular among young painters and many considered him to be the main bridge between the traditions of the Russian and French Moderne of the beginning of 20th century and Russian avant-garde and the Russian avant-garde of the 1960s.

Ronald Horan

With John Wheeler, Horan co-authored “Senior French” in two volumes, first published in 1961, later to become the well respected “A New French Course”, in five volumes, that is still a standard in school education and the University of the Third Age.

Ryan Max Riley

According to his Yale biography, Riley has a pet polish dwarf rabbit named Thibault after a character (Tybalt) in William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet and the pet lobster of the French poet Gérard de Nerval, a pet lobster that Nerval used to walk around Paris with a blue ribbon.

Seichō Matsumoto

In 1987, he was invited by French mystery writers to talk about his sense of mystery at Grenoble.

Serge Brussolo

In 2009, a film adaptation of his best-seller French-language novel Les Emmurés was adapted into a film, entitled Walled In.

Shandar

Shandar was a French record label specializing in avant-garde material that did seminal work during the 1970 releasing, among others, recordings by Albert Ayler, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Steve Reich, Sunny Murray, Philip Glass, Richard Horowitz, Charlemagne Palestine, La Monte Young, Alan Silva, Pandit Pran Nath, Terry Riley, Cecil Taylor and Sun Ra.

Simone Gbagbo

In July 2008 she was formally called for questioning by a French investigative judge, examining the April 2004 disappearance and presumed death in Abidjan of French-Canadian journalist Guy-André Kieffer.

Stealing Heaven

Stealing Heaven is a 1988 film, a costume drama based on the French 12th century medieval romance (a true story) of Peter Abelard and Héloïse and on a historical novel by Marion Meade.

Terrano

Mondeuse noire, a French wine grape that is also known as Terrano

The Mountain

The Mountain (French: La Montagne) is a political group during the French Revolution whose members, called Montagnards, sat on the highest benches in the Assembly.

Viscose

French scientist and industrialist Hilaire de Chardonnet (1838–1924)— who invented the first artificial textile fiber, artificial silk—created viscose.

Yakovlev Yak-3

Marcel Albert, the official top-scoring World War II French ace, who flew the Yak in USSR with the Normandie-Niémen Group, considered it a superior aircraft to the P-51D Mustang and the Supermarine Spitfire.