Drinking a little French wine recently with French son and his girlfriend who just returned from a month in France i was surprised when they toasted:

"Chin-Chin"

rather than a ta Sante or whatever that phrased, to your health is exactly

I asked what was this Chin-Chin - i had traveled France for a long time and on many occasions was involved in toasts but never heard "Chin-Chin"

but son said that it was very common in France, especially among younger folk. I'm still skeptical.

Is Chin-Chin a widely used toast in France?

Have you been to Italy? Cin Cin!

great - perhaps it came from Italy - cin - does it mean Chinese as son said it meant in French

and that he said there's a stale joke now about in China they toast with "Fran, Fran"

Don't even ask what it means in Japanese.
Certainly not a toast.

Hi PB,

We heard that a lot in Italy.

For the etymology, see www.languagehat.com/archives/002352.php

thanks Ira - wow! rather complex derivation and i guess i've been missing out on it in Europe for a long time.

I've always understood Chin-Chin as an homage to the Cincinnati Reds.

I think this is listed in the Larousse as Tchin Tchin (I don't have it, so I can't check for sure). That's because of the way Ch is prounounced in French. To get that sound, French would add a "T" to the front.

As I think it's a common toast.

It's a common informal toast.

I think it's generally spelled "Cin Cin." It's an Italian toast that I also heard a lot in France, but mainly with younger folks, I guess. I have a friend who used to live in France who says it all the time.

With all due respect to explanations presented above, I think that Chin-Chin (or any other variation) is a onomaptopeia of the sounds of glasses touching each other after a toast is made.

I'm a bit surprised you have never heard of Cin-Cin. Sure they say "à ta (votre) santé" but I hear Cin-Cin frequently too, in France & in Swiss French area. Usually they think the expression came from Italy. And it is an onomatopoeia.

I even hear sometimes like " Allez, cin " (cin only once).

This is a common French toast - we hear it often. (Le Petit Robert dictionary tells me it is indeed Tchin Tchin, pigeon English from Canton,1829)

A friend who worked at Unesco for many years told us of a reception for foreign diplomats, where the ambassador from China was talking to his counterpart from Mali. The Mali ambassador lifted his glass and said 'Chin Chin' - the Chinese looked rather confused, but rather than be left behind, lifted his glass and said 'Mali Mali!'

In France, it's spelled Tchin-Tchin: cf. this link --

http://mapage.noos.fr/lesaviezvous/cg/tchin.htm

Funny, I guess I don't usually see it in print, but hear it often and always assumed it was spelled Tchin Tchin, which I knew as the name of a Broadway play in the 1960s for which Margaret Leighton won a best actress Tony and Anthony Quinn also starred in. It was named for the toast.

By the way, how would a Frenchman pronounce cin cin? San san? I don't know. You definitely need the t in accordance with French pronunciation to get that sound.

I don't speak Italian, so I'll have to take people's word for it.

Agree with gertie. Chin chin in Japanese, especially preceded with the honorific "O-" is a toast or boast best reserved for private places...

I was staying with a family in France who thought we said it all the time in England. I knew of it, but as something very dated. It was certainly around in English in and after the First World War, though it may have come via soldiers on leave from France. If you remember Oh What A Lovely War:

"Goodbyee! Goodbyee!
Wipe the tear, baby dear, from your eye-ee.
Though it's hard to part I know,
I'll be tickled to death to go.

Don't cry-ee, don't sigh-ee,
There's a silver lining in the sky-ee.
Cheerio, chin chin, bonsoir old thing,
Napoo, toodle-oo, goodbyee!"

I thought chin-chin was Spanish....
It's the usual thing to say here...

Chin chin is very current, as is Ciao and also "choos" which may be German(?)

Another WWI song, purely cos its beautiful.

The sun's shining down on these green fields of France;
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow;
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard that's still No Man's Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man.
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.

And I can't help but wonder, no Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you "The Cause?"
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.