Clochard in French certainly means "tramp", or "homeless person". It comes from from clocher, to limp, from the Vulgar Latin cloppicare, from cloppus, lame person, alteration of Latin claudus. Cf. the Roman Emperor Claudius, who was lame.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions, Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!
And while we're on about it: German Penner 'bum, down-and-out, dosser, wino'. Cf. Pennen 'flop house' and pennen 'to kip'. Also, no doubt, untranslatable.
Whatever happened to hobo? (Been watching a lot of '30s movies.)
Another question: I wasn't aware of any linkage from French to Albanian. Any information on that?[/QUOTE]
This is interesting... I didn't know that the word 'kloshar' (or 'klošar' as we write it)frequently used in Croatia and all other parts of former Yugoslavia was French in origin, and even less that it was used in Albanian with the same meaning. We also have a verb derived from 'klošar', a slang term, much like the noun - 'klošariti', meaning to hang out in the street pointlessly, to bum around, usually penniless.
This page indicates that Albanian has many loan words from Latin, presumably because of the Roman Empire. It may be that the Albanian (and the similar words used in other Balkan languages mentioned by Metezh) word kloshar descends from the same Vulgar Latin root cloppicare I mentioned earlier.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions, Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!
Well, French and Albanian are related to one another, although they're rather distant cousins. They are both Indo-European languages. French is a Romance language, and as such a member of the Italic sub-family. Albanian is part of the Albanian sub-family, and may have been related to the ancient languages Thracian, Illyrian, or Phrygian (your pick).
I doubt that Albanian borrowed the VL word, but who knows. klloshar (or kloshar) made the currently circulating list of "untranslatable" words. Not sure why ...
