It is funny how English is a mongrel language evolved from French (which
used to be the language of the gentry in England up 'til around the
fourteenth century I think), German, Latin and Scandinavian across the
centuries, and how every other language in the world now takes English
words and uses them.
In the case of libre, I believe it used to be a word commonly used in
English, but fell out of fashion. I suppose liberate and liberty are the
closest derived words commonly in use.
It's fair to say that it's the closest we have in terms of
differentiating between the French words "gratuit" and "libre". It's
odd, because often in English we have two words for the same thing (eg
start/commence) where we have kept the German and French words in use;
in this case we have one word for two meanings!
On 10/02/11 08:32, Marianne Lombard wrote:
Hi
I've seen some english-speaking conference where the word "libre" was
use instead of "free as free speach".
For one time, it's english who appropriate an french word.
Perhaps can we use it too ?
My 2 cents
