the French vs. the Franks

And I am just suggesting that it could be just as useful to see the world like this:
- Northern Europe
- Central Europe
- Southern Europe
not just geographical, but also culturally.

For linguistic use we have the terms:
- Germanic
- Latin /Romance

In the era of the EU and other kinds of enlightenement we really should see that the old imperialistic thoughts about all the big "language tribes" of Europe having very much in common is just nonsense. A person from Freiburg in Breisgau has very little in common with a person from the North Cape, although they both officially are Germanic. The same applies to "Latin" people from Besançon and Cadiz. But although people from Besançon and Freiburg are also rather unlike each other, they share some degree of Central European culture, just because they are rather close neighbours.

You'd be surprised at how much European culture the Europeans share.
Differences can be due more to climate than to distance. There are other differences, such as the historical line between catholicism and protestantism. In many way that will make southern Germans, Belgians or people from Ireland closer to people from southern Europe.

As far as the climate is concerned, somebody from the snowy Sierra Nevada mountains in Granada or from rainy Galicia in northern Spain would probably have a lot in common with some traditions which are thought to be northern: like chopping wood for the winter cold, for instance or huge electricity bills and really hot or boiled food.

There is much more to that because as far as the rest is concerned I assure you young 21st university college students from Cadiz can be very much like those from Norway except that most of them are probably merrier. As far as getting drunk I would say the Norwegians are close competitors (and get drunk easier because they are not as used as Andalusians are to affordable pleasures.)

A Norwegian living in southern Spain will know immediate changes in his body and wat of life and an Andalusian living in Norway will also know a few. The first you'll realise is that some Norwegians will go darker (or redder) and many Andalusians will go whiter (or more pale).
What I'm trying to say is that there are far too many Romantic 19th century topics still alive in this old continent.

I totally agree with you Jordi! Climate and distance are just as important as the culture connected to language and history!

Quoting myself about the Alsatians:
speaking a Latin/Romance and a Germanic language

Here I meant French AND Elsässich, not that French is a Latin-Germanic language.

Someone wrote this about France: "In Province the things and people are simple and spontaneous. the food is traditional. the dinners are faimilial and friendly..."

That was a simple and tedious cliché.

How was that in anyway related to Franks turning French ?

fabbrice wrote : "By the way, occitan is not really intermediary with french and Italian. It is part of the same sub-group than french (western romance languages), while italian is part of the eastern romance languages. the closest language to occitan is catalan (catalan is considered to be derived from an occitan dialect)"

True it is that Occitan is not really intermediary with French and Italian. Occitan is not part of the same subgroup as French. Occitan is a Central Romance Language as are its variant, Catalan (basically Eastern Spain) and Gallo-Italian languages spoken in Piedmont, Lombardy, Emily, Ligury and Venicy. French is a Northern Romance Language as are Arpitan (Franco-provençal or Franco-occitan) and Rhetic languages spoken in southeastern Switzerland and northeastern Italy.

What fabbrice called Italian used to be a dialect spoken in Central Italy and an Italic Romance Language as are Sardinian and South Italian (spoken in the Midi = Mezzogiorno).

Neither Occitan nor Catalan belong to the group of Iberic Romance Languages which comprises Galico-Portuguese, Spanish (Castillan) and Asturo-Leonese.

The Oriental Romance Languages : Romanian (and Moldav) and Meglenoromanian (spoken in Greece and Albany).

One shouldn't even mention "Moldav", as there is really no linguistic basis for Moldavia being anything separate from Romanian whatsoever in the first place.

Whoops, that should be "Moldavian".

greg wrote "Occitan is not part of the same subgroup as French."

The first division between romance language is between "western romance languages" and "eastern romance languages";
Occitan, like french, spanish, portuguese and catalan are part of the western romance subgroup, while the eastern one includes italian (tuscan dialect), romanian, and other south italian dialects (north italian dialects are part of the western group) So, yes, french and occitan are part of the same sub-group.

Of course the "western group" can be also sub-divided in "gallo-roman group" in occitan group" in "ibero group" etc...

Greg wrote "Someone wrote this about France: "In Province the things and people are simple and spontaneous. the food is traditional. the dinners are faimilial and friendly..."
That was a simple and tedious cliché. "

Of course it is a cliché ! We were spoking with frederik about cliches he have about parisians. But, like all clichés it is based on a partial truth, and when I said "province" i meant province outside big cities.

Etant moi-même Parisien d'origine provinciale je peut dire qu'il est évident qu'il y a des différences entre les Parisiens et les provinciaux. Bien sur, celà dépend des régions et aussi des gens eux-mêmes, et que ça reste un cliché.

jordi and frederik, I think you are confusing two things ;
- the cultural identity (language, literature, history, etc...)
- the way of life (habits due to climate, to income, modes)

If thinking "culture" just as "way of life", unfortunally today we are all becoming (or already became) the same uniform "americanized" group. Us Europeans We eat the same fast foods, we don't take time to make good food, were the same clothes, go to the same kind of malls, see the same international movies and are influenced by the same values it carries... Whatever we are from Spain, Italy, Germany, England, France, Norway...
And soon we'll just be all american english speakers... (that's would be so sad)

Fortunally, today our national languages, wich is the basis of our memory, the vector of our values and our dreams, our national unity, the door to our future and the main link to were we come from still alive.
Language is the main thing that makes you who you are. It relates you to the people who speak it and to the peoples who speak close languages. It's not just a question of communication, it's a question of identity, the feeling of being part of a family.

Yes, language is important. But not the only factor. We Scandinavians feel close to the Finns too, even though they speak a totally other language than us.

Salut fabbrice,

I think we should ask Jordi to settle the matter. He's expert in Romance languages. In my opinion French and Occitan are western Romance languages geographically (although Portugal is a bit more western than France). I wouldn't group French and Spanish and Portuguese together in a the same set of languages. Likewise, French and Occitan belong to distinct groups. I believe Occitan and Catalan to be very close, closer anyway than any of both to French.

These are no evidence, just examples :

cheese - Oc formatge - Ca formatge - Fr fromage - Sp queso - Po queijo
table - Oc taula - Ca taula - Fr table - Sp mesa - Po mesa
window - Oc fenèstra - Ca finestra - Fr fenêtre - Sp ventana - Po janela
bird - Oc aucel - Ca ocell - Fr oiseau - Sp pajaro - Po ave
apple - Oc poma - Ca poma - Fr pomme - Sp manzana - Po maçã
fork - Oc forqueta - Ca forquilla - Fr fourchette - Sp tenedor - Po garfo.

Those hints suggest that French, Occitan and Catalan may have diverged from Spanish and Portuguese. French in turn could have drifted apart from Catalan and Occitan as you may infer from its strikingly different vowel system (probable Frankish influence).

As for the languages traditionally spoken in the Italian peninsula, I'm not too sure Piedmontese, Emilian, Lombard, Ligurian and Venitian belong to Eastern Romany. Again, I think Jordi's opinion would help, but my view is that those 5 languages spoken in Northern Italy can't be grouped with either Italian (Toscan) or Southern Italian (Mezzogiorno and Sicily) or Sardinian.

OK pour le cliché sur la province. Le simple fait d'utiliser ce terme est déjà un cliché, à mes yeux.

To make a long lesson short and without looking up any notes. French is clearly Gallo-Romance and Spanish and Portuguese are clearly Ibero-Romance and then we would have Italo-Romance.

Some linguists now speak of an Occitano-Catalan group, which would be somewhere in between these Gallo and Ibero: including all Occitan varieties: Lemosin Provençal Alpin, Provençal Occitan, Lengadocian, Gascon and, finally, Catalan considered by all Romance language linguists a different language.

The fact is Occitan has become more Gallo-Romanian since the Middle Ages and Catalan has become more Ibero-Romanian, both for geographical and political reasons that can be traced in the languages. They already greatly were, in their genesis, since Catalan descends mainly from the Latin spoken in the Tarraconensis province and Occitan in the neighbouring Narbonensis province. The first 12th century Catalan prose texts are strikingly similiar to the contemporary language although Occitan was widely used for poetry in Occitania, Northern Italy, Catalonia and even in Northern France, Castille or Galicia! It was the fashionable language long before French arrived.

It is not true that Catalonia received substantial immigration from the north although Carlemagne (Catalan for Karl the Great, who spoke a German dialect) did place a border line south of Barcelona.

Catalonia might have received some immigration from Christians fleeing from the Muslim invasion south but at a very early date (8th century) when we can still almost speak of Late Latin or Proto-Romance.

If Occitania and Catalonia had established a medieval state they would have surely evolved in the same path (with perhaps one literary language) but it never was since the French conquered Occitania in 1213 (Battle of Muret, near Tolosa de Lengadoc (Toulouse).

Both languages still remain very close but there are some basic striking differences (greater than between Escandinavian languages and something like Dutch and German at the present time.)

Catalan is more Iberian in its morpho-syntax and more Gallic in its basic vocabulary. Catalan is closer to Lengadocian Occitan, which is the most Iberian of all Occitan dialects. Spelling is different in a few major points and pronunciation is quite different.

The thing can be settled in one speaks of a continuum of diasystems (systems of dialects, which can make up a literary language if favourable conditions arise). There are some transitional dialects, which are quickly fading out: like Aragonese (between Catalan and Castilian Spanish) or Asturian-Leonese (announcing Portuguese including the more archaic Galician varieties) since they have been greatly absorbed by one of the other.

Franco-Provençal would be the variety that announces northern French with quite a few Occitan characteristics, although a totally different diasystem, which could have made another Literary language in the area between Lyon and Geneva.
Northern Italian varieties do share a few Gallo-Romanian characteristics (within the transitional continuum of course) but are much closer to all Italo-Romance varieties and there is a clear line between Occitan dialects spoken in the Italian Alps and neighbouring Italic dialects.

I have answered as if it was a very short summary for an exam.