[gamavor]

Cherchez la femme

Il y a une femme dans toutes les affaires; aussitТt qu'on me fait un rapport, je dis: `Cherchez la femme'.

There is a woman in every case; as soon as they bring me a report, I say, `Look for the woman'.
Alexandre Dumas, Les Mohicans de Paris, II. iii

Note: I will use ‘ch’ to mean ‘sh’ in this case.

The act or action of seeking, searching, or looking for, is implicitly related to some kind of movement. Be it physical, or just movement of the brain cells to figure out something.
The word “cherchez” in French, to mean “seek” looks intriguingly similar to the word “ charjel”, “charjvil”, “charjum”, to mean in Armenian – movement, like physical movement (inkna-sharj - locomotive), move or just political movement if you wish.
I don’t know who borrowed from whom (if any) but in any case the similarity is obvious and I wonder about the etymology of the word “charjvel”

How would you say in French – caricature?

[DominO]

In my opinion it should be indo-european in nature. The word "search" means about the same thing as the verb "chercher."

"cherche" "search" sounds to have same ethymology. I don't have a dictionary right next to me to tell exactly what is the ethymology.

As for Armenian, I would think that the similarity of words is just coincidances, "pndrel" would be a more exact word here, since "chargil" and all its variations don't specify the why of the movement. I might be wrong, don't know...

This post has been edited by Fadix: 20 August 2004 - 09:29 PM