fable

Forms

fable f (oblique plural fables)^[1]

• flabe, faule^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin fābula (“talk; story”).^[1][4][5][6] The Latin noun is formed from the root of for (“to speak”) with the suffix -bula.^[7][1] The DHLF calls the French word a half-borrowing, and Bloch and Wartburg describe it as a word that stayed in contact with written Latin.^[8][9]

The DEAF notes that in the Romance languages that kept the word native forms stand beside borrowed ones: Italian fola and Italian fiaba beside Italian favola, and Old Occitan faula beside fabla, while Spanish fábula is learned.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Lapidaire alphabétique, an Anglo-Norman poem of the first third of the 12th century, probably by Philippe de Thaon, in a manuscript of the late 12th century.^[5][10] The TLFi's first record is Wace's Brut, 1155, for an imaginary tale.^[4]

Semantic evolution

From "talk" and "story" the word moved to "untrue story": the Roman d'Énéas, about 1160, uses it for a lie,^[4][8] and the AND records phrases meaning "to tell lies" and "to disbelieve".^[11] About 1180 Marie de France uses it for a short moral tale told with animals.^[4][12] The DEAF stresses that, unlike istoire, a fable was always taken for fiction, and quotes a definition from 1282: Fable si est en la quele ne se contient point veritables choses ne semblables a la verité “a fable is one that contains nothing true nor like the truth”.^[5]

The diminutive fablel, in its Picard form fabliau, became the name of a genre of comic tales in verse.^[8] Only in the 17th century did French fable come to mean the mythology of antiquity.^[8]

Timeline

• 1100–1133 – fable in the Anglo-Norman Lapidaire alphabétique.^[5][10]
• 1155 – an imaginary tale, in Wace's Brut.^[4]
• c. 1160 – a lying tale, in the Roman d'Énéas.^[4]
• c. 1170 – fable in Chrétien de Troyes's Erec et Enide.^[13]
• c. 1180 – an animal fable, in Marie de France's Fables.^[4]
• c. 1180 – the diminutive fablel first recorded.^[5]
• 1282 – a definition of the fable in Jean d'Antioche's translation of the Rhetoric to Herennius.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. talk, chatter.^[2][14]
2. a (fictitious) story, tale.^[4][11]
3. an untrue story, a lie, falsehood.^[4][11]
4. a fable, an animal story.^[12][4][11]
5. a proverb.^[12]

Anglo-Norman

The AND first cites the word from the first third of the 12th century, which agrees with the Lapidaire, and records it also for a mythological story and for vanity or illusion.^[11][5] The Jeu d'Adam, written in England, has it in the second half of the 12th century.^[15] Middle English took the word from Old French and Latin about 1300, first for a falsehood or fictitious tale.^[16][17]

Word family

• fabler
• fablel

Descendants

• Middle French fable (→ French fable)^[1]
• Middle Dutch fabele (borrowed; → Dutch fabel)^[1]
• Middle English fable (borrowed; → English fable)^[1]
• Middle High German fabele (borrowed; → German Fabel)^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 3:1543
3. ^ FROLEX 3.0, lexique morphologique du français médiéval (IXe–XVe s.), Base de français médiéval, ENS de Lyon (from the BFM, the Nouveau Corpus d'Amsterdam and the DMF), github.com/sheiden/Medieval-French-Language-Toolkit
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Baldinger, Kurt; Möhren, Frankwalt; Städtler, Thomas, eds. (1971–2021), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien français (DEAF), Heidelberg: Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften; DEAFél / DEAFpré, deaf-server.adw.uni-heidelberg.de, p. s.v. fable
6. ^ Gamillscheg, Ernst (1966–1969), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der französischen Sprache, 2nd, fully revised ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 437
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. fable
9. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France, p. 290
10. ^ a b Möhren, Frankwalt, Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien français (DEAF): Complément bibliographique, electronic version (DEAFBiblEl), Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, alma.hadw-bw.de/deafbibl (texts by siglum, with their dates), p. LapidalS
11. ^ a b c d e Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. fable
12. ^ a b c Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 3:1544
13. ^ Dictionnaire électronique de Chrétien de Troyes (DÉCT), LFA / Université d'Ottawa – ATILF, CNRS / Université de Lorraine (2014), p. s.v. fable
14. ^ Greimas, Algirdas Julien (1979), Dictionnaire de l'ancien français jusqu'au milieu du XIVe siècle, 2nd ed., Paris: Larousse (printing of 1988), p. s.v. fable
15. ^ Rainsford, Thomas, CorMétAF: lemmatised extracts of Old and Middle French verse and prose (990–1500), github (texts by siglum), p. AdamN
16. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
17. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com