Le vasistas

Le mot du jour : “Le vasistas”
Today, I am going to show you how, in France, we can be very good at misusing other people’s languages.
Here is the story :
In Germany in the 18th century, houses used to have a small window above the door, and when you knocked, they would ask you through that window “Was ist das ?”, meaning “What is it?”
French people going to Germany gave the name “vasistas” to that little window and it stayed that way.
We still use it today to describe a little window, most of the time without realising its German origin and meaning 😊

Vasistas — WikipĂ©dia