Etymology

by abcrystcats

Posted to Utterances on 2004-06-16 17:30:00

Parent message is 663503
Boy you led me on a merry chase for this one. I’m not sure I have it right but, here goes:

Per Webster’s Dictionary, the word novel comes from the french “nouvelle”. Nouvelle was first used in France as a word to identify a long work of fiction.

Tidbit: I didn’t know that the story of Sinuhe the Egyptian was considered the first novel. I didn’t know that such a document even existed. I thought it was all the invention of Mika Waltari and a badly acted 50s Hollywood blockbuster. Found that on the internet and will go back to it later.

In looking up what the internet has to say about early French novels, my GUESS is that the use of the word “novel” originates with Rousseau’s work “La Nouvelle Heloise”. It was one of the earliest French novels. It doesn’t make sense that a word meaning “new” in French would later be used as a noun, unless there were some quirky origin.

Good question. Let’s see what others have to say on the subject.