"Tu me jestes" is a phrase I recall hearing when I lived in Normandie as a kid in the 90s

Question

When I was a kid living in France I swear I remember hearing the phrase "Tu me jestes ?" -- to mean "Are you kidding me?" However I can't seem to find anywhere online that confirms this. Was this just some Franglais between friends or is it a valid French phrase? I lived in Caen, France.

Answer 1

Although I'm not a specialist of Normand dialect, it does definitely sound like some franglais to me! I never heard of such a verb although I clearly see how it might have been constructed from English.

Sorry for (obviously) having no source to contribute with!

Answer 2

Geste in Old and Middle French meant an admirable or memorable act, or the tale of such an act. English imported the word with that meaning, then the meaning shifted to exaggerated tales of exploits and then to jokes in general. I cannot find any reference to the “joke” meaning in French¹, not even in Norman dialect (I could not find it in any online Norman dictionary).

Hypothesis: this was in or after 1993, when the movie Les Visiteurs came out. That movie had a lot of dialog in faux old French. (Actual Old French would have been incomprehensible to audiences.) This sounds like the kind of made-up old French that could plausibly have been in that movie.

Counter-argument: there are plenty of lists of quotes from that movie online, and none contain “geste” or “jeste”.

¹ _{It is notably not mentioned in the very thorough * Dictionnaire étymologique de l’ancien français* entry for geste. Mind you, it wouldn't be if the meaning had only appeared in Middle French.}