What makes French a Latin-Germanic mixed language

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<<Hwaet! We gardena in geardagum theodcyninga, thrym gefunon, hu tha aethelingas ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scefing sceathena threatum, monegum maegthum, meodosetla ofteah, egsode eorlas. Sythan aerest wearth feasceaft funden, he theas frofre gebad, weox under wolcnum, weorthmyndum thah, othdeat him aeghwylc thara ymbsittendra
>>

What! We Gore-Danes in yeardays Nation-kings', glory performed, how the athlings glorious-acts did. Oft[en] Scyld Scefing sheath(?) threats many mays (kinsmen), mead-settles (meadchairs) off-took, awed [the] earls. Since erst became (worthed) ? found, he ? comfort bade (offered), waxed (grew) under welkins, worthminds ?, until [to] him each of the around-sitters.

My knowledge of Anglo Saxon is comparable to that of a similarly equipped Modern European in regards to Classical Latin.

The spelling of AngloSaxon makes it difficult, and one must have a basic knowledge of the pattern of how AngloSaxon words transformed over time. With the exception of the usage of genitive case, it is not that different in basic sentence flow from older varieties of Modern English, especially Elizabethan English.

The jump from Anglo-Saxon to English is not as far as Classical Latin to Italian per se.

But to the casual English speaker, that passage would be incomprehensible, I must add.

Not to make generalities, but I would "assume" that it might be easier for an English speaker to learn AngloSaxon than it would be for an Italian to learn Latin ONLY because Latin is so much more complex.
AngloSaxon is no harder than Modern German would be for an English speaker.

I've been reading this forum for a while, and I've complied a few quotes..from a few people (who shall remain nameless..) to demonstrate the idiocy on this forum. I'm sorry, I dont want to be mean, but some of the people who get on here and go on and on about what they know, actually know very little at all.

"For modern French/Spanish/Italian speakers it is VERY DIFFICULT to learn classical Latin spoken in 4th century"

--- It's impossible to learn classical latin spoken in the 4th century. I wasnt spoken in the 4th century...hence "classical"

"For modern Germanic speakers, it is relatively easy to learn Gothic spoken in 4th century (Bible of Wulfila)"

---- I asked a germanic languages specialist about this one. He just rolled his eyes.

"Germanic barbars were eager to learn the presigious Latin, but they were too numerous and the socially subordinated Romans in such a weak oposition that Latin was more or less destroyed - only some vocabulary survived in the new Creole "Vulgar Latin" language. This is especially true for French...."

----LOL...euh... the "barbars" were not that numerous. So few were their numbers that they couldnt even impose their languages on the conquered people. Well all know that the elites of Germanic society didnt learn Latin. The fist king of France to speak it natively was Capet.

"Romance languages derive from Germanic. For example see the paralellism:

English: I eat potatoes.
Spanish: Yo como patatas.
It's the same."

---- This is my favourite. My absolute favourite. LOL..i dont even need to comment!!!

"Germanic participated fifty percent in the creation of French."

--- Really? Did you consult the Holy Roman Statistics Book, written by the Ministry of Information and get this info? LOL...50%... give me a break. If youre going to argue, at least come up with something that somewhat ressembles a fact.

"English is not a Latin mixed language!
You could argue that English lexicon is a French-AngloSaxon-Old Norse mix, but not the language itself
Wallon or French are better candidates for latin-German mixtures"

---- Ya think? Well...this I could argue with for hours, and my fingers are tired. I just find it funny that people who claim that French is a mixed language just run away from the thought that English could be one too, especially since the steady deformation of Anglo-Saxon is so much better documented than any romance language. Rapid loss of declension, intense vocabulary borrowing (we're talking thousands and thousands of words here...thousands!), simplification of grammar (examples of which are not found in any other germanic language), I especially love the part "lexicon, but not the language itself" As if languages are somehow detached from their vocabularies! Without a vocabulary dear sir, a language isnt anything.

There were many other candidates for my list, but then this post would be 10 pages long. I'd love to have a really fair and open debate on the germanness of French, but this forum is definitely NOT the place to do it. There have been some people (especially more recent posters) who have contributed to a more intelligent conversation on this matter, but wow...the ignorant statements on here... it would make any language or linguistics teacher just reach for their bag and find a nitroglycerol!

<<"Germanic barbars were eager to learn the presigious Latin, but they were too numerous and the socially subordinated Romans in such a weak oposition that Latin was more or less destroyed - only some vocabulary survived in the new Creole "Vulgar Latin" language. This is especially true for French...."

----LOL...euh... the "barbars" were not that numerous. So few were their numbers that they couldnt even impose their languages on the conquered people. Well all know that the elites of Germanic society didnt learn Latin. The fist king of France to speak it natively was Capet.

"Romance languages derive from Germanic. For example see the paralellism:

English: I eat potatoes.
Spanish: Yo como patatas.
It's the same."

---- This is my favourite. My absolute favourite. LOL..i dont even need to comment!!!

"Germanic participated fifty percent in the creation of French."

--- Really? Did you consult the Holy Roman Statistics Book, written by the Ministry of Information and get this info? LOL...50%... give me a break. If youre going to argue, at least come up with something that somewhat ressembles a fact.

"English is not a Latin mixed language!
You could argue that English lexicon is a French-AngloSaxon-Old Norse mix, but not the language itself
Wallon or French are better candidates for latin-German mixtures"
>>

Dear Mr Idiocy,

You must keep in mind that we here at Antimoon have a , (ahem) certain *culture*. We like to be sarcastic and often say outrageously stupid and irreverent things in order to make a point : )

Such were some of the comment above. Granted, not all of them. Please do not take everything everone says as literal, but rather as comic interlude during stressful debates : )

It's just a little stress relief. makes the discussion bearable.

The jump from Anglo-Saxon to English is not as far as Classical Latin to Italian per se.

= Ive been following this forum today, and ok..im gonna tackle one more! Just one more for tonight. I agree with you that if you were to just casually examine the distance between anglo-saxon and modern english and classical latin and italian, you might say the leap isnt as big. but lets look at the following:

Anglo-Saxon to English:

A strict case system to a virutally non-existent case system

Vowel and consonant shifts (ranging from slight to quite dramatic)

Loose word order to a very fixed word order.

Replacement of certain personal pronouns (thanks to old norse)

Replacement and/or enriching of around 50% of vocabulary (due to French and other romance languages)

That's a lot of change!

We see the same sort of stuff in romance languages (apart from the massive vocabulary shifting), though I do have to state very strongly, that if we were going to compare Italian or French to "Latin" we'd have to compare them to Vulgar Latin, not Classical! We see the same sort of language change all over the world.

People love to go on about how Modern-day Greeks can read Ancient Greek and how Icelanders can read the Sagas, but there are only a handful of languages on earth that havent changed that much (and that is due to many factors).

All languages evolve, some more than others.

Now, to make some more realistic comparison of modern italian or french, lets look at this text (I dont particularly like this text since its a re-creation, but one done by people who know what their doing...still..its a re-creation, but it gives us an idea)..

Classical Latin

Per Dei amorem et per christiani po puli et nostram commumem salutem, ab hac die, quantum Deus scire et posse mihi dat, servabo hunc meum fratrem Carolum, et ope mea et in quacumque re, ut quilibet fratrem suum servare jure debet, dummodo mihiidem faciat et cum Clotario nullam unquam pactionem faclam, quæ mea voluntate huic meo fratri Carolo damno sit.

Vulgar Latin (recreated by linguists) (use this as your comparison point)

Por deo amore et por chrestyano poblo et nostro comune salvamento de esto die en avante en quanto Deos sabere et podere me donat, sic salvarayo eo eccesto meon fradre Karlo, et en ayuda et en caduna causa, sic qomo omo per drecto son fradre salvare devet, en o qued illi me altrosic fatsyat, et ab Ludero nullo plagdo nonqua prendrayo, qui meon volo eccesto meon fradre Karlo en damno seat.

Proto-Gallo Roman (some might say old old French - original text)

Pro deo amur et pro christian poblo et nostro commun saluament d'ist di en avant, in quant Deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo, et in aiudha et in cadhuna cosa, si cum om per dreit son fradra salvar dift, in o quid il mi altresi fazet et ab Ludhernulplaid nunquam prindraiqui meon vol cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit.

It's me or Classical Latin and ancient Germanic languages resemble to each other a bit? I mean, not only because they are Indoeuropean, but something else.

<<Then it's only comparable in antiquity to Proto-Romance. Classical Latin is much older. >>

This is true. Classical Latin would be comparable to Common West Germanic (protolanguage).

<<Anglo-Saxon to English:
A strict case system to a virutally non-existent case system
Vowel and consonant shifts (ranging from slight to quite dramatic)
Loose word order to a very fixed word order.
Replacement of certain personal pronouns (thanks to old norse)
Replacement and/or enriching of around 50% of vocabulary (due to French and other romance languages)
>>

Though this contrast with Classical Latin is no invalid, but anyway...
Classical Latin's word order was just as, if not more restricting than AS.
Classical Latin had 6 cases compared to AS's 4/5 (instrumental was vestigial)
Old Norse only supplied one: thei, which was later analogized to the oblique forms.
Lexicon is the major difference, partly from natural loss of words, but mostly from borrowing from French during the Middle English period.

Similar to what some purport on this thread, it can be said that English too is in the same boat as Romance in regards to being a creole (if you fancy pondering some innovative thoughts).
Old Norse had an impact on English analog in many respects what many claim Frankish had on Old French.

No!! Not a suggestion that English is a creole too! Id have to go back to grad school for that one..... Ok..lets just all decide we're gonna pick on Chinese. Then we could all babble about something we know nothing about!

Oh and CID, I know....to compare Anglo-Saxon to English and Classical Latin to French is like comparing a fat cat to a skinny chihuahua. But hey..i was just trying clear up some stuff mentioned earlier. ;)

<<How old is that text? Is it VII century AngloSaxon? Then it's only comparable in antiquity to Proto-Romance. Classical Latin is much older. Remember that by the time of Cicero it was already a dead language for practical purposes. >>

True, but time is not the only factor.

Although date-wise Old English aligns somwehere between Proto-Romance and Old French, development-wise, Old English probably is nearer to Vulgar Latin. It was yet conservative in IE features (dual pronouns, 5 cases, 3 distinct genders) in comparison to Common Romance, where cases had been reduced to 2 and genders had fallen together into Masc-Neut & Fem.

CID Thu May 28, 2009 10:58 pm GMT
...Similar to what some purport on this thread, it can be said that English too is in the same boat as Romance in regards to being a creole (if you fancy pondering some innovative thoughts).
Old Norse had an impact on English analog in many respects what many claim Frankish had on Old French.

______________________________
The parallels are obvious:

<<Anglo-Saxon to English:
A strict case system to a virutally non-existent case system
Vowel and consonant shifts (ranging from slight to quite dramatic)
Loose word order to a very fixed word order.
Replacement of certain personal pronouns (thanks to old norse)
Replacement and/or enriching of around 50% of vocabulary (due to French and other romance languages)
>>
Latin to Romance:
A strict case system to a virtually non-existent case system
Vowel and consonant shifts (ranging from slight to quite dramatic)
Loose word order to a very fixed word order.
Introduction of definite articles (thanks to Gothic etc)
Replacement and/or enriching of vocabulary (due to Frankish and other Germanic languages)

<<Old Norse had an impact on English analog in many respects what many claim Frankish had on Old French. >>
Old Norse and Old English were mutually intelligible. Old Norse had impact on English analog in many respects what many claim Frankish had on Old Saxon (and vice versa). Frankish and Old French weren't mutually intelligible.

We have now two statements here - which one is correct?

_______________________________________
1)

Prof. Stéphane Goyette, university of Ottawa:

The emergence of the Romance languages from Latin: A case for creolization effects.

This thesis aims to ascertain whether or not the phenomenon known as creolization played a role in the emergence of the Romance language from Latin. Creolization and normal language change differ in terms of their respective effects upon inflectional morphology: normal language change yields morphological loss and morphological creation through grammaticization. Creolization cause inflectional morphology to be severely reduced. Thus, the hypothesis tested would predict that the transition from Latin to Romance would involve an unusually high degree of morphological loss and an absence of creation of new inflectional morphology. Comparison with another language, whose external history precludes its having been creolized, Greek, is used to ascertain whether Romance shows an unusual pattern of morphological loss.. Comparison is first made between the fate of Latin nominal declension in Romance and Classical Greek declension in Modern Greek. It is found that declension was almost wholly eliminated in Romance but is preserved largely unscathed in Modern Greek. A similar fate befell adjectival declension. Likewise, the synthetic comparatives and superlatives of Latin did not survive into Romance, but those of Classical Greek survived into Modern Greek. Comparison of the two verb systems yields a similar result: whereas Romance severely reduced Latin verbal morphology (most importantly, the passive), Modern Greek has preserved the greater part of Classical Greek verbal morphology unscathed. If one adds to this a complete absence of any morphological creation in the emerging Romance languages, one is forced to conclude that creolization must indeed have played a role in the history of Romance. In conclusion, some examination is made of other alleged instances of creole-influenced language change, all of which are found wanting: some suggestions are made regarding methodology. Likewise, the implications of this conclusion, to linguists and especially Romance linguists, are presented.

Full text available at URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10393/9059

___________________________________________________

2)

Forgetting one major fact Tue May 26, 2009 11:28 pm GMT :

The people who are using the word creolization to define the roots of the French language are forgetting one basic fact. In pre-medieval Gaul or France, any migrating Franks, especially those of the elites of Frankish society would have already had either a fluent command of Latin or a rudimentary command of the language, given the cultural dominance of Latin (in any of its forms, spoken or written).

All of these Latin speakers would have been second-language speakers of Latin (L2 speakers) and for their own native language to form a creole with Latin, that creole would have had to exhibit certain characteristics, such as:

loss of complex adjectives and adverbs
use of adverbs to express modality
very rigid word order, with almost no variation
deep and significant verbal morphology
reduction in plural formation or no indicators or plural forms
Intense vocabulary mixing (high percentages of vocabulary borrowing, especially any technical or "advanced" vocabulary. In the late roman period, this would have meant heavy borrowing of religious terminology, among other lexical domains)
A fairly rapid stage evolving from pidgin status to creole status.

If you were to compare these factual common charactaristics of creole languages, you would notice that basically none of them apply to Vulgar Latin nor to any proto-romance dialect/sociolect. French, along with its sister languages,

Retains complex adjectives and adverbs, all inherited from forms of Latin prior to the migration period.
Very little, or no use of adverbs to express modality
High variataion in word order, especially in older 16th, 17th century forms
Conservation of all main forms of Latin verbal morphology
Plural forms exist in all romance languages, deriving from Latin sources
No evidence at all of high levels of vocabulary mixing (though some Romance languages show differing levels of Germanic loan-words, most of the loan words were "fashionable" at the time, and were later repalced by other words, most of which were of Latin origins)
No documented stage of pidgin language production. No romance language shows any pidgin language characteristics. Nor did any form of Late Latin (Vulgar Latin for some).

________________________________

<<Old Norse and Old English were mutually intelligible. Old Norse had impact on English analog in many respects what many claim Frankish had on Old Saxon (and vice versa). Frankish and Old French weren't mutually intelligible. >>

Old English and Old Norse did share some basic common vocabulary (words for 'man(n)', 'hus', 'bearn', etc), but they were NOT mutually intelligible. There was too much semantic drift, and too many sound shifts to afford Mut. Intel.
Inflectional Morphology and different syntax (Modern English derives it's particular syntax in stour part from Old Norse) also threw a stumbling block in the way of any mutual intelligibility.

Below are the Lord's Prayers in Old Norse and Old English. They are not even close enough to be mutually understood.

Old Norse:
"Faþer vár es ert í himenríki, verði nafn þitt hæilagt
Til kome ríke þitt, værði vili þin
sva a iarðu sem í himnum.
Gef oss í dag brauð vort dagligt
Ok fyr gefþu oss synþer órar,
sem vér fyr gefom þeim er viþ oss hafa misgert
Leiðd oss eigi í freistni, heldr leys þv oss frá öllu illu."

Old English:

Fæder ūser þū sē eart on heofonum,
sī þīn nama gehālgod.
Tōbecume þīn rīce.
Gewurþe þīn willa
on eorþan swā swā on heofonum.
ūserne gedæghwǣmlīcan hlāf sele ūs tō dæg.
And forgief ūs ūsre gyltas,
swā swā wē forgiefaþ ūsrum gyltedum.
And ne gelǣd þū ūs on contnunga
ac ālȳs ūs of yfele.
Sōthlīce.

<<Inflectional Morphology and different syntax (Modern English derives it's particular syntax in stour part from Old Norse) also threw a stumbling block in the way of any mutual intelligibility.
>>

This is why Modern English is so analytic in its grammar and structure. The only way for the Anglo-saxons and Northmen to have any basic kind of communication was to forgo all the inflectional morphology that was getting in their way and causing ambiguity, which resulted in a type of pidgin Germanic in Northern England and Scotland where we see in Middle English period the near complete stripping away of all morphology and strong inflow of Old Norse words and forms. We see this even to the degree of taking on ON inflectional forms and the verb "to be" (present participle ending in '-and' < ON; Past participle ending in '-en', with strong terminating 'n' [West Saxon had weakened to '-e' or disappeared], 'ware' for "was/were", 'aren' "are" etc)

Old Norse was the catalyst which makes Modern English so different from Old English. A similar occurrence is also a possibility, if not the probability, in the formation not only of Old French, but also of Proto-Romance from VLatin.

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