Development cooperation in French

The sixteenth entry is l’aide humanitaire, and the adjective at the end of it belongs to a family the two languages have divided up differently. Out of Latin humanus English made three adjectives and keeps them strictly apart. « Human » is the plain one, about the species: human rights, human error, a human being. « Humane » is about how the helpless are treated: a humane prison regime, humane slaughter, a humane decision. « Humanitarian » belongs to relief work: humanitarian aid, a humanitarian corridor, a humanitarian crisis. French made two, and the one it did not make is the middle one. Humain does the work of « human » and of « humane » at once, so un traitement humain is humane treatment while une erreur humaine is human error, and nothing in the adjective says which reading is wanted. Then humanitaire goes one step further than anything English does with it: French has turned it into a noun for the whole field, so travailler dans l’humanitaire is to work in relief. English has « a humanitarian » for the person and nothing at all for the sector, and says « aid work » instead.