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What is the capital of Tunisia?

Why is Eastern Switzerland called Suisse orientale in French?

The adjective “oriental(e)” designates something situated to the east, the orient.

The adjective “occidental(e)” designates something situated to the west, the occident

Sure you could call it “Suisse de l’est”, but using the appropriate adjective is more elegant and in this case is not really ambiguous. For example in French, middle-east is not called “moyen-est”, but “moyen-orient”.

If one of your friend from another region would describe you as “Mon ami suisse oriental”, there indeed could be a certain confusion, but that’s another story.

https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/oriental_orientale_orientaux/56472

Définitions :

Qui est situé à l’est : La côte orientale de la Corse.

Relatif à
l’Orient : Peuples orientaux.

Qui est propre à l’Orient, à sa culture,
ses traditions : Musique orientale.

Qui est digne de l’Orient, tel
qu’il est imaginé dans la culture occidentale : Luxe oriental.

Here is the first definition that is pertinent: Qui est situé à l’est (Who is located in the east).

Read also the article here :

https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/oriental

The word oriental has two origines.

(Adjectif) Du latin orientalis venant de oriens (« orient »).

(Nom)
(XXe siècle) Car venu en Europe d’Orient.

(…)

Qui est situé à l’est. Cette ville, située à une altitude de mille
toises sur le revers oriental des Rocheuses, au bord d’un torrent
tributaire du Missouri, forme un vaste entrepôt pour les produits
miniers de la région, et compte de quatorze à quinze mille habitants.
— (Jules Verne, Le Testament d’un excentrique, 1899, livre 2, chap.
12)

The antonyme is occidental.

As a french native speaker living in Suisse romande, I can confirm that suisse orientale is commonly understood and used to speak of the east part of Switzerland (St-Gallen, Graubünden,…).

Though most of time, the whole german part of Switzerland is seen as suisse allemande for the people in suisse romande. As I lived in Zurich, I noticed that the differenciation between Ostschweiz, Zentralschweiz, etc. is mostly used by german swiss people themself. Probably because, the accent and dialect changes depending if you comes from Bern, St-Gallen, Zürich, etc.

The short answer is that oriental is the adjective associated to the noun est. “Eastern X” and “X oriental(e)” are in straightforward correspondance.

In French, you can’t just take a noun and use it as an adjective. You often need to add or change a suffix, and sometimes more than that. There is no adjective built directly on est¹.

It’s very common for “basic” nouns and verbs to have evolved continuously from Latin (formation populaire), and for more “fancy” terms to have been introduced during the Middle-Ages in a form that’s a lot closer to the Latin (formation savante). There’s a somewhat similar phenomenon in English with basic words of Germanic origin and fancy words of Romance origin. The cardinal directions in French (est, ouest, nord, sud) actually come from English (or more precisely Anglo-Saxon), and can be considered formations populaires. They have associated adjectives that come from the names of the cardinal directions in Latin: oriental (from oriens), occidental (from occidens), septentrional (from Septentrio), méridional (from meridies). The adjectives oriental and occidental are the “normal” adjectives for east and west. Méridional is a little less used, with sud being more common as an adjective or apposed noun¹. Septentrional is rarely used and there is an adjective nordique, but this adjective is mostly used only with the same meaning as Nordic in English, referring specifically to the Nordic countries.

Other constructions would be possible, for example “Suisse de l’est” (like Corse-du-Sud, Corée du Sud) or “Est-Suisse” (like Nord-Kivu). But “Suisse orientale” follows a common and (to a French speaker) unremarakable pattern, like Pyrénées-Orientales, Flandre-Orientale and Flandre-Occidentale,

¹ The word est is sometimes classified as an adjective in expressions like “la rive est” (the east coast/bank) and “le versant est” (the east flank [of a mountain]), but I think it would be more accurate to classify it as a noun in apposition, since it is invariable. Adjectives normally agree with the noun in French.

 

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What is the capital of Tunisia?