|
|
What makes French a Latin-Germanic mixed language
dddd Mon May 18, 2009 5:37 pm GMT
Dans le nord on aime l'allemand aussi. J'ai habité dans le nord-est de la France, là-bas aussi l'allemand était plus choisi que l'espagnol, mais les choses changent.
" Que c'est la langue des américains .
Oui, je sais, c'est très stupide. " Oui, mais j'espère qu'ils savent au moins qu'à la base c'était la langue des Anglais bien avant d'être celle des Américains, non !?? ;) Même quand on ne connait pas le terme "germanique", on sait ou on se rend compte que l'Anglais présente des points commun avec les autres langues du nord de l'Europe que le Français, L'Italien ou l'Espagnol ne partagent pas. A moins de tomber sur des gens qui ne sont jamais sortis de leur pays et n'ont jamais croisé des gens d'autres pays chez eux... Ce qui est quand même heureusement assez rare de nos jours. Mais bon je suis d'accord que ça existe. L'inverse aussi; j'ai parfois rencontré de gens qui ignoraient que le Français était une langue latine ou bien des Américains (pourtant cultivés par ailleurs) qui, au contraire, pensaient que l'Anglais en était une... Et qui furent choqué quand je leur dit qu'ils parlaient une langue affiliée à l'Allemand! Mais j'espère qu'une telle ignorance ne représente pas la norme...
guest guest : « Mais bon je suis d'accord que ça existe. L'inverse aussi; j'ai parfois rencontré de gens qui ignoraient que le Français était une langue latine ou bien des Américains (pourtant cultivés par ailleurs) qui, au contraire, pensaient que l'Anglais en était une... Et qui furent choqué quand je leur dit qu'ils parlaient une langue affiliée à l'Allemand! »
Oui, c'est vrai. Pour beaucoup, le français c'est du français sui generis. Je suis même sûr que certains croient que le français descend du gaulois. À leur décharge il faut dire qu'il y eut, au XIXe siècle et avant, des lettrés pour penser que le français dérivait du grec ou de l'hébreu. Alors, certes, avec le latinocentrage mâtiné de germanomanie, on s'écarte des filiations fantaisistes. Mais on passe encore à côté de l'essentiel : la romanité viscérale de la langue française. Tout ça me fait penser au succès d'un film comme les « Visiteurs » qui a "convaincu" des millions d'âmes que l'ancien français (d'ailleurs jamais expressément identifié comme tel) était la langue que parlaient Clavier & Reno à l'écran → "épousailles", "fillotte", "merdasse", "anglois" etc.
<<I agree complelty. I'll translate for Ouest and Leasnam, hoping to understand their arguments to maintain their point of view: >>
I thought Ouest is French, or am I wrong?
<<À leur décharge il faut dire qu'il y eut, au XIXe siècle et avant, des lettrés pour penser que le français dérivait du grec ou de l'hébreu. Alors, certes, avec le latinocentrage mâtiné de germanomanie, on s'écarte des filiations fantaisistes.>>
Convenu . Ils penseraient que la France avait fait des contacts à un certain point avec ceux de la descente germanique qui est-...Attends!- celle est avec précision ce qui s'est produit!
" I thought Ouest is French, or am I wrong? "
No, Ouest is not french. He is probably Dutch.
" l'allemand ou le néerlandais ont peu ou pas de succès auprès des jeunes, l'espagnol ou le japonais par contre..."
- C'est faux, dans les collèges et lycées tout le monde sait que les classes allamand 1ère langue sont les meilleures. Le cursus anglais + espagnol c'est pour les losers. Avouons que nous autres Français n'arrivons pas à prendre l'espagnol et l'italien au sérieux. Ces langues ont quelque chose de clownesque (Julien Gracq les trouvait "auto-parodiques"). Les gens qui roulent les R, comme les Indiens ou les Russes, ont un problème avec le monde moderne.
Ive spent a bit of time reading a lot of the posts, and though some are very well-informed and thourough in their attempt at clearing up the question of French's "germanness", most posts are quite lacking in their depth and insight. I am a native French-speaker, so please forgive any horrid mistakes I might make in English.
I have been a student of linguistics (more specifically, historical linguistics) for over 10 years (B.A., M.A. and Ph.D.), and I have quite often heard this silly argument that French is somehow a germanic-latin creole, or that germanic influence in French is profound and far-reaching. If one were to believe these arguments (all based on fragments of information, none of which are taken into context, and none of which take into consideration the complexity of romance language development), one would be ignoring major facts, that cannot be disputed (I'm sorry, but some facts are facts, and though they can be argued and twisted to suit whomever, at the end of the day, they remain facts!). 1. The vast majority of French vocabulary all derive from Vulgar Latin. French shares near 90% lexical similarity with Italian and the percentage only lowers a bit when you compare it to Spanish. Germanic influence on modern French vocabulary is minimal. I would go as far as to say that its influence on other romance languages is just as far-reaching. One only has to spend some time studying Italian or Spanish to see similar germanic borrowings (most of which are war or trade related). 2. I have heard and read the argument that since French grammatical structure is so similar to English or German, that this must be the proof that French is highly germanicised. We need to take two major facts into consideration. First of all, English sentence structure does, in some cases, ressemble French (SVO order, use of personal pronouns, similiar clause structure), but these are similarities shared among most Indo-European languages (especially those who have lost their declension systems, thus making fixed word order that much more important). Also, French was the language of the English court for hundreds of years. French influenced English to a great degree. One only has to analyse what I'm writing to see the thousands of words of French origin in this post. Im quite amused reading the posts comparing French and English, especially those done with horrid translations, which incorrectly word the French text to make it more similar to the English. If one were to write Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, or even Romanian equivalents, one would notice that all the romance languages share very common grammatical structures. 2. Finally, to all those who post excerpts written in classical Latin, and who say "look...the proof!! French is so drastically different!" We need to be reminded of something. French, or any romance language, did not derive from Classical Latin. I'm sorry, but the language of Cicero didnt not have a direct impact on the development and evolution of any romance language, not even Italian. Spanish shares very little with classical Latin. Modern Italian does not ressemble classical Latin either. All romance languages derive from Vulgair or Low Latin, which in and of itself differed quite dramatically from Classical Latin. We need to remember that classical latin was a spoken language only 1 or 2 centuries before and after the death of Christ. Whether Classical Latin changed and evolved into vulgar Latin or whether Vulgar Latin co-existed with its written counterpart, we are not sure, but we do know that vulgar latin was the common language spoken throughout the empire. This form of latin had a much more rigid structure (due to a loss of inflections, and loss of final consonants in some cases), it had quite a different vocabulary, making great use of slang and metaphor. It also, over time, made more and more use of prepositions and pronouns. Its phonetic system differed from classical latin, in some cases, very much so. All of these features (there are far too many to elaborate) developped and evolved throughout the 3rd and 4th centuries until the fall of Rome, after which (due to political chaos and division of the old empire) the vulgar latin that was spoken in various old provinces of Rome began to fracture and eventually develop into romance languages. Yes, Germanic tribes did have an influence on French phonetics, and on vocabulary. The thesis about the passé composé is disputed, since it seems that this verb tense had its roots in vulgar latin, long before any germanic migrations. To sum up this very long post, I'd just like to point out one last fact. Italian has much germanic influence. Romansch is heavily influenced by german. Romanian has a large chunk of its vocabulary thanks to Slavic languages. Spanish wouldnt be Spanish today without Arabic influence. And what about the many many smaller romance languages (it irks me sometimes that people speak of "italian" without considering that "italian" is made of up many dialects and sociolects)? Is there a "pure" romance tongue? No. Are all romance languages derived from vulgar latin and retain all major grammatical elements of this form of latin (with varying degrees of evolution and phonetic change of course), yes. Is English or German or any other language "pure"? If some of these readers are looking for a "pure" and "unadulterated" form of a romance language, I suggest that they just learn classical latin and relax. If you want a "pure" germanic language, well...learn proto-germanic. If you want French to be a germanic-latin "pidgin" "creole" or "mix"...sorry...you can keep dreaming and dreaming. Keep reading books like "linguistics for dummies" or keep taking "into to linguistics".. they are all helpful ressources, but in no way shape or form do they train and prepare true linguists who base their knowledge on facts, and not on anecdotal info, or info read on wikipedia. Voilà, c'est tout. Encore une fois, je m'excuse si j'ai fait beaucoup de fautes en anglais. Merci.
Joshqc Wed May 20, 2009 2:56 am GMT :
French, or any romance language, did not derive from Classical Latin. I'm sorry, but the language of Cicero didnt not have a direct impact on the development and evolution of any romance language, not even Italian. Spanish shares very little with classical Latin. Modern Italian does not ressemble classical Latin either. All romance languages derive from Vulgair or Low Latin, which in and of itself differed quite dramatically from Classical Latin. .... All of the features [of Vulgair or Low Latin] (there are far too many to elaborate) developped and evolved throughout the 3rd and 4th centuries until the fall of Rome, after which (due to political chaos and division of the old empire) the vulgar latin that was spoken in various old provinces of Rome began to fracture and eventually develop into romance languages. Yes, Germanic tribes did have an influence on French phonetics, and on vocabulary..... ______________________________________________- I fully agree: Vulgar Latin developped and evolved throughout the 3rd and 4th centuries until the fall of Rome. This is exactly the time of the migration period when Germano-Latin language contact led to the formation of Vulgar Latin, the ancestor of all Romance languages and dialects. It seems that Vulgar Latin IS the Germano-Latin coproduction, the Germano-Latin mix, the starting point of all European Romance languages!
<< All of the features [of Vulgair or Low Latin] (there are far too many to elaborate) developped and evolved throughout the 3rd and 4th centuries until the fall of Rome, after which... >>
-- This is IMPOSSIBLE. How could Latin evolve so quickly into completely different languages like the Romance ones within a couple of centuries? With so established a written standard like Latin? << ... (due to political chaos and division of the old empire) the vulgar latin that was spoken in various old provinces of Rome began to fracture and eventually develop into romance languages. >> -- Hey, if it had happened that way, each and every Romance language would have gone its own way. They diverged indeed, but still maintaining a number of grammatical similarities that are just the features by which they completely differ from Latin. Isn't that weird? The only sensible answer to that enigma is that Old Romance is NOT Latin and never was. It's something else. Something that natively was pretty close to Germanic.
<<1. The vast majority of French vocabulary all derive from Vulgar Latin. French shares near 90% lexical similarity with Italian and the percentage only lowers a bit when you compare it to Spanish. Germanic influence on modern French vocabulary is minimal. I would go as far as to say that its influence on other romance languages is just as far-reaching. One only has to spend some time studying Italian or Spanish to see similar germanic borrowings (most of which are war or trade related). >>
Really? <<OLD FRENCH [edit] Frankish The Old Frankish language had a large influence on the vocabulary of Old French after the conquest, by the Germanic tribe of the Franks, of the portions of Roman Gaul that are now France and Belgium during the Migration Period. The name Français is derived from the name of this tribe. A number of other Germanic peoples, including the Burgundians and the Visigoths, were active in the territory at that time; the Germanic languages spoken by the Franks, Burgundians, and others were not written languages, and at this remove it is often difficult to identify from which specific Germanic source a given Germanic word in French is derived. Philologists such as Pope (1934) estimate that perhaps fifteen percent of the vocabulary of modern French derives from Germanic sources, including a large number of common words like haïr ‘to hate’, bateau ‘boat’, and hache ‘axe’. It has been suggested that the passé composé and other compound verbs used in French conjugation are also the result of Germanic influences.[citation needed] Other Germanic words in Old French appeared as a result of Norman settlements in Normandy during the 10th century. The settlers spoke Old Norse; and their settlement was legitimised and made permanent in 911 under Rollo of Normandy. A few seafaring terms, notably the four points of the compass, were also borrowed via the Normans from Old English. [edit] Frankish The Old Frankish language had a large influence on the vocabulary of Old French after the conquest, by the Germanic tribe of the Franks, of the portions of Roman Gaul that are now France and Belgium during the Migration Period. The name Français is derived from the name of this tribe. A number of other Germanic peoples, including the Burgundians and the Visigoths, were active in the territory at that time; the Germanic languages spoken by the Franks, Burgundians, and others were not written languages, and at this remove it is often difficult to identify from which specific Germanic source a given Germanic word in French is derived. Philologists such as Pope (1934) estimate that perhaps fifteen percent of the vocabulary of modern French derives from Germanic sources, including a large number of common words like haïr ‘to hate’, bateau ‘boat’, and hache ‘axe’. It has been suggested that the passé composé and other compound verbs used in French conjugation are also the result of Germanic influences.[citation needed] Other Germanic words in Old French appeared as a result of Norman settlements in Normandy during the 10th century. The settlers spoke Old Norse; and their settlement was legitimised and made permanent in 911 under Rollo of Normandy. A few seafaring terms, notably the four points of the compass, were also borrowed via the Normans from Old English.>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_French <<HISTORY OF FRENCH [edit] The Franks From the third century on, Western Europe was invaded by Germanic tribes from the north and east, and some of these groups settled in Gaul. For the history of the French language, the most important of these groups are the Franks in northern France, the Alemanni in the German/French border, the Burgundians in the Rhône valley and the Visigoths in the Aquitaine region and Spain. Their language had a profound effect on the Latin spoken in their respective regions, altering both the pronunciation and the syntax. They also introduced a number of new words. Sources disagree on how much vocabulary of modern French comes from Germanic words, ranging from just 400 words [3] to 15% of modern vocabulary [4]. Changes in lexicon/morphology: the name of the language itself, français, comes from the Germanic Frank ('freeman'). The Franks referred to their land as Franko(n) which became Francia in Latin in the 3rd century (then an area in Gallia belgica, somewhere in modern-day Belgium or the Netherlands). several terms and expressions associated with their social structure (gars/garçon, maréchal) and military tactics (fief, flanc). a few colors derived from Frankish and other German languages (blanc, bleu, blond, brun, gris). other examples among the most usual words include auberge, fauteuil, laid, tuyau and many words starting with a hard g (like gagner, guerre) or with an aspired h (haine, hâte) [5] endings in -ard (from Frankish hard : bâtard), -and, -aud, -ais, -er, -ier and many verb endings in -ir ( choisir, jaillir). Changes in pronunciation: reintroduction of the vowel [y] reintroduction of consonant h (that no longer exists in modern French, however a Germanic h usually disallows liaison: les halles /lɛ'al/, les haies /lɛ'ɛ/, les haltes /lɛ'alt/, whereas a Latin h allows liaison: les herbes /lɛzɛrb/, les hôtels /lɛzotɛl/. reintroduction of consonant [w], probably pronounced as in Dutch between /v/ and /w/, and developing into /gw/ and then /g/ in modern French (hence French guerre whereas the English form keeps the /w/: war). profound changes in the vowel structures, caused by the Frankish stress. Unstressed syllabes were often lost (particularly syllabes with the final vowel), while vowels in stressed syllabes often became diphthong (e.g. tela -> TEla -> toile)[6] Changes in syntax: maintenance of cases (compared to Spanish or Italian): hence Old French had li murs (the wall) or li fils (the son) (Modern French le mur, le fils), respectively from Latin murus, filius. subject pronoun: always present before the verb, whereas it is not necessary in Spanish or Italian. The pronoun on (from hom/homme) is an adaptation of Germanic pronoun man(n)- (one, general you, singular they). adjective before the noun: pauvre homme, belle femme, vieil homme, grande table, petite table (however most adjectives are placed after the noun). >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_French
rep, no need to post once again this same wikipedia article... It has been posterdozens of times already. I you had read the answered posts you would have understand the weakness (when they are not just completly wrong) of the arguments.
I'll invite you to read them again.
No need to post once again this wishful thinking:
<<Germanic influence on modern French vocabulary is minimal. I would go as far as to say that its influence on other romance languages is just as far-reaching>>
" Germanic influence on modern French vocabulary is minimal. I would go as far as to say that its influence on other romance languages is just as far-reaching "
Well, the numbers are clear: In french 30 000 words-based lexical, 88% of them are of latin etymology, 85% if we based on 60 000 words-based lexical. It means that about at least 6/7 of french lexical words are latin-based, the number is about the same in all romance languages. It means that a maximum of 15% of french words are not of latin origins. Some linguistics, in older times tend to think that as soon as a word hasn't a latin origin it was necessary Germanic, even if there were no trace of similar words in any known germanic language !... The number of french words that are for sure of germanic origins is around 400, that is to say about 1-2%. Saying that they are more is pure speaculation, and can't be more than a absolute maximum of 15%. This way of thinking that everything that is not latin IS germanic is fortunally not widely spread anymore among linguits (but not in this forum). It is quite clear that it is not possible that 15% of words can be all of germanic origin, especially because we know a lot of other etymologies: a lot of COMMON words derive (for sure) from Arabic (thru Spanish form a lot of them) (zéro, chiffre, (al)chimie, alcool, algèbre, alcôve, arsenal, artichaut, assasin, aubergine, bougie, calibre, camelote, carafe, caramel, coton, échec, élixir, fardeau, girafe, jaquette, jarre, laque, magasin, matelas, massage, mesquin, nuque, orange, récif, rame, sorbet, zénith, etc..., others from Lugurian, Celtic, Slavic, Basque and probably also other pré-celtic languages... I should forget some. Even if it was true that all non-latin words in french were of germanic origins: it would mean that they would represent an ABSOLUTE maximum of 15% of total lexical (I don't even speak of common speach!)... That would be already a quite minor influence, consited of 1/7 of words... ( when we know that in english, a maximum of 70% of latinate words is not enought to make it a romance language!...) Then, knowing that most of these words are not part of common speech vocabulary (but more often linked to old rural, militar or aristocratic lexical), imagine what they would represent in percentage in a current speech: take a average modern french current speech a look what are the words of germanic origins... (outside of modern English/American neologisms), the percentage of non-latin based words will fall at around maybe 5% (and maybe more)... In the case old non-latin words are germanic, yes it would mean that 5% of current french speech is germanic (which is very low!)... But since we know that many of these words have other origins than germanic ones, and that a majority of the rest is not germanic for sure (only about 400 words are for sure liinked with a known germanic language I remind you)... The real percentage of germanic words in a french speech rise around 2-3% AT BEST, probably less.
<<-- This is IMPOSSIBLE. How could Latin evolve so quickly into completely different languages like the Romance ones within a couple of centuries? With so established a written standard like Latin? >>
It's not too hard to imagine this possibility if it can be called that. More like PLAUSIBILITY. <<<< ... (due to political chaos and division of the old empire) the vulgar latin that was spoken in various old provinces of Rome began to fracture and eventually develop into romance languages. >> -- Hey, if it had happened that way, each and every Romance language would have gone its own way. They diverged indeed, but still maintaining a number of grammatical similarities that are just the features by which they completely differ from Latin. Isn't that weird? >> Not as weird as one might think. Areal sprachbunding would have kept them more or less in line with one another. Besides, it hasn't been that long since they began diverging. Keep in mind too that languages, once diverged, can converge. <<The only sensible answer to that enigma is that Old Romance is NOT Latin and never was. It's something else. Something that natively was pretty close to Germanic. >> Pretty close to germanic indeed ;0) |