Musings on some signboards (by Douglas)

Back when Congo was a colony of Belgium, it was decided to use French as the language of national administration. That's why even more than fifty years after the country achieved independence, we use French every day.

But almost no one in Bunia is a mother-tongue speaker of French. That means that we encounter nuances of French usage here that we don't see anywhere else. I present as examples three signboards in our general neighborhood.

One is on a roadside restaurant run by "la Brune". This is related to the English word brunet / brunette ('brown-haired'). In France, this would mean that the woman who runs it is darker than others: at least having brown eyes and brown hair, if not tanned. Here, it means that the woman who runs it is fair-skinned by local standards, i.e. brown rather than black.

A little further down the road is a shoe-repair shop marked "Coordonnerie". The usual French word is "cordonnerie", staffed by a "cordonnier". (The English equivalent "cordwainer" is not in common use -- that's an example of my trademark understatement.) What has happened is that people have been influenced by the verb "coordonner" 'to coordinate' and the noun "coordination" (which is how one marks some offices of people who run things). You want your shoes to be repaired by a responsible and well-coordinated specialist, don't you?

Around the corner and down a block there is a "Cafétariat". This begins like "cafeteria" (an eating establishment) and ends like "Secrétariat" -- again, an office where important work gets done. So, after you drop off your shoes for the attention of the coordinated cordwainer, you can grab a bite at the high-level professional café.

There's more to many things than meets the eye...