What makes French a Latin-Germanic mixed language

Thank you for the citation - it is written there:

That quick adaptability .... expressed itself in the shrewd Norman willingness to take on local men of talent, to marry the high-born local women; confidently illiterate Norman masters used the literate clerks of the church for their own purpose. Their success at assimilating was so thorough, few modern traces remain, whether in Palermo in Sicily or Kiew.
....
In the course of the 10th century the initial destructive incursions of Norse war bands into the rivers of Gaul evolved into more permanent encampments that included women and chattel. ....With the zeal of new converts they set forth in the 11th century from their solid base in Normandy. Characteristically it was younger sons, like William the Bastard who were largely dispossessed at home, that headed the adventurous raiding parties.

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The Normans stem obviously from Vikings that had a serious over-population problem in their home land. That subsequently brought them to expand into European areas with low population density and growth rate. 100 years after their arriving in Normandy, they again had too much population and had to expand further. Assuming that any "Gallo-Roman" population, that is since Tacitus often characterized by the sources as somewhat self sufficient, lazy, ineffective, quarrelsome, decadent and as bad soldiers, had some chances to stand the test of time and to outlast the arrival of the Vikings is quite implausible. Anyhow - real hard data of medieval population statistics in Normandy (and elsewhere) are still missing.

I think that there's a lot of misunderstanding as to who some of the most famous peoples of the ancient and medieval world actually were. The Normans are often just thought of as merely Frenchmen who happened to come from Normandy when their identity was a bit more complex than that. Although they spoke their own French dialect and were essentially French in culture, their very name of "Norman" means "Northman" or "Norse" in French, which suggests their Viking origins.

The Moors in Iberia and Sicily were hardly a uniform bunch either. They were a mix of "true" Arabs (from Arabia), Syrians and other peoples from the Levant, indigenous coastal Berber groups of North Africa, and by the time they invaded Sicily, their ranks had also surely included many Spaniards who converted to Islam. Thus in Sicily, quite a few native Sicilians assimilated into Moorish civilization. The term "Moor" was basically a medieval European term for any Muslim. Supposedly it meant something along the lines of "dark" or perhaps even "black," but that's because compared to the vast majority of Europeans, the Muslim Moors were of a darker complexion as they descended from various southern and eastern Mediterranean populations. The Moors probably all used Arabic as a lingua franca even if Arabic was not their original native language. They certainly were not black as we understand the term today, namely sub-Saharan African. Personally I think that various Shakespearean works, most notably "Othello" and "The Merchant of Venice," mistakenly misidentified black Africans with the Moors.

It's quite probable that Shakespeare, being British, had no idea what an actual Moor looked like as the British never had any contact with them. Popular contemporary media and Hollywood have also contributed to some misinformation as well in my opinion. Also possibly skewing the perception of the medieval Moors is the fact that many of today's North Africans have more sub-Saharan ancestry on account of the trans-Saharan slave trade, which resulted in a large number of black African women who were sold as concubines to Arab and Berber men, to whom many children of mixed ancestry were born and were later absorbed into the population. That likely explains why it's common to see many of today's North Africans having darker complexions, curlier hair, etc. than other Mediterranean populations. This slave trade went on for at least a millenium and still does in isolated areas of North Africa.

If one goes back to ancient times, the Romans were really never a uniform ethnic group. From the upstart they were a blend of invading Italic-speaking Indo-European tribes who had intermarried with the previous inhabitants of Italy. They later absorbed large numbers of Etruscans, Greeks in southern Italy, and northern Italian Gauls (Celts) of the Po Valley into their ranks as they spread throughout Italy. Then as they conquered much of Europe and the Mediterranean world, still others were absorbed into their ranks as Rome made citizens out of many of its subjects such that people in such far-flung provinces as Spain and Dacia (Romania) called themselves "Romans." Even today, Romanians see themselves as the descendants of Romans, and in the context I'm discussing, they largely are.

The Greeks were largely the same as the Romans. Indo-Europeans who amalgamated and assimilated the previous inhabitants of what is now Greece, who later absorbed Macedonians, Thracians, Slavs, Albanians, Turks and others into its population as time has gone by. Modern Greeks are certainly to a large extent descended from the Ancient Greeks but only an overzealous nationalist would make the claim that they're pure descendants of them. Ditto for a modern Italian claiming that all Italians are purely descended from the Ancient Romans.

Al : « It's quite probable that Shakespeare, being British, had no idea what an actual Moor looked like as the British never had any contact with them. »

Mais "Shakespeare", en tant qu'héritier d'une nation dont l'élite politique et littéraire fut autrefois exclusivement francophone, ne pouvait ignorer la production épique d'expression française où les références aux Sarrasins abondent. D'autant que nombre de souverains français d'Angleterre ont ramené des Maures dans leurs bagages, à l'occasion de leur retour d'expédition en Orient.

D'autre part je ne vois pas trop le rapport linguistique avec le pseudo-sujet de ce salon.

^Sorry but I don't speak French. Wish I could reply to what you said. If you wouldn't mind translating that into English (if possible), I'd appreciate it.

<<,^Sorry but I don't speak French. Wish I could reply to what you said. If you wouldn't mind translating that into English (if possible), I'd appreciate it. >>

sorry, but greg *can't* speak and write in English--he still lives in the 19th century. in his mind.

^If you can't understand French you can bugger off to "English" forum. This is "Languages" forum.

Whoa relax blanc. It was a simple request that's all. I wasn't trying to be smart or sarcastic. That said, despite the fact that this is a "Languages" forum, I didn't see a requirement that said it was mandatory that all posters be fluent in every language. If he can speak and write in English, I'm just saying that I'd have an easier time communicating with him, that's all.

Is "blanc" a moderator of this forum?

<<^If you can't understand French you can bugger off to "English" forum. This is "Languages" forum. >>

Does that mean that the de facto Sprache here is "any and all languages"? I thought it meant that the subject could be about "Languages" in general...

with the "English" forum being devoted to subjects aimed specifically at English...

I would like to read more posts in languages other than English, for instance Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, It's a forum about languages after all and most of the forumers are supposed to know more than one language. It would be a useful exercise.

Je suis d'accord avec toi Mallorqui et je suggère que nous commencions tout de suite.

<<I would like to read more posts in languages other than English, for instance Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, It's a forum about languages after all and most of the forumers are supposed to know more than one language. It would be a useful exercise. >>

What would be ideal then is to have separate forums in each language. A forum is not a forum where less than 100% of the participants are not 100% clear on what's being communicated.

In any forum, one must have a common means of communication, or at least interpreters to faciliate such, otherwise the idea of it being called a forum becomes ridiculous.

If it helps cut and paste Greg's responses into the Yahoo translation site (formally Babelfish). It is pretty good with the translating of what exactly Greg is saying since he has nearly perfect grammatical French. I don't really read, speak, or write in French but since I am a native English speaker but with my background in Br. Portuguese and Caribbean Spanish I can get 60% of what he is writing. The rest I tend to put in the Babelfish translation software for further clarification. I hope that helps.

<<If it helps cut and paste Greg's responses into the Yahoo translation site (formally Babelfish). It is pretty good with the translating of what exactly Greg is saying since he has nearly perfect grammatical French. I don't really read, speak, or write in French but since I am a native English speaker but with my background in Br. Portuguese and Caribbean Spanish I can get 60% of what he is writing. The rest I tend to put in the Babelfish translation software for further clarification. I hope that helps. >>

***OR***
He can just save everyone the trouble and frickin' post in English. He does speak English (He is English and German after all). But no. He has to be "difficile"

Big weirdo

Año 2009, todo el mundo habla inglés. Todo? No, en una aldea gala habita Gregix, el francófono irredento.