spanish,french, english

Sander   Sat Oct 15, 2005 9:27 am GMT
Hmm, the message above was posted a bit too soon.

.... a native french speaker, of course most of the European languages are connected, (with the exception of of a few, like Finnish,Basque and Sami) , the came forth out of the same language -IndoEuropean- but saying that because of the fact that they had a common ancestor propably 6000 years ago is a bit far fetched.

In fact, on this hypothes, you a Romance speaker should have an advantage over me , a Germanic speaker, when learning a Celtic language like Gaelic.And I should have an advantage over you when speaking a Slavic language.

Seriously, do you believe this?!
Flipper   Sat Oct 15, 2005 9:40 am GMT
The French speaker would recognise "homes" and since he also knows a Germanic language (according to my scenario), he'll feel some sense of deja-vu with "cat" and "milk" and possible "giving".
Flipper   Sat Oct 15, 2005 9:42 am GMT
A Basque or Celtic language speaker will usually also know another W. European language: French, English or Spanish. A Finn, Sami, Japanese....probably won't.
Sander   Sat Oct 15, 2005 9:45 am GMT
No no no no!

The speaker has no knowledge of English whatsoever!

So tell me, which words would you then recognise?
Sander   Sat Oct 15, 2005 9:47 am GMT
"You" as an french speaker with no knowledge of English.
Georges   Sat Oct 15, 2005 9:50 am GMT
In fact that's a good question. Do English speakers find the Romance languages are easier to learn than the German ones or is it the other way round?
Sander   Sat Oct 15, 2005 9:53 am GMT
I read somewhere, about a test in which monolingual English people, were given a text in German and a French one, and they 'got/guessed' about 70% of the French text and about 35% of the German text.
Georges   Sat Oct 15, 2005 9:54 am GMT
If I spoke only French, I would be able to recognise the French loanwords in other European languages (or in Japanese for that matter) and the loanwords that French share in common with other languages.
Georges   Sat Oct 15, 2005 9:58 am GMT
Interesting. So I guess that make French monolinguals able to understand 70% of an English text. Though an English text with too much Germanic words would not allow the same figures.
Sander   Sat Oct 15, 2005 9:58 am GMT
Georges, yes of course, you would but French loans aren't as prominant in other languages (English with it's 75% romance vocabulary is an extreme example)

For example, which romance (French) loan do you recognise in this word?

"kans"
Georges   Sat Oct 15, 2005 10:05 am GMT
None obviously (unless I am mistaken?). That's my point exactly: I would be able to recognise the French loanwords ONLY.
Sander   Sat Oct 15, 2005 10:09 am GMT
'kans' means 'chance' :-)

It's a form of purism in the Dutch language.Where as German (Chance) and English (chance) follow the romance loan completly Dutch "Germanised" the loan to point that it would be hard for a French person to recognise.

So it really depends on the language.
bernard   Sat Oct 15, 2005 10:12 am GMT
" another W. European language: French, English or Spanish. "


I don't understand why you continue to oppose West-European languages with East-European ones. If we want to speak about linguitic similarities, germanic languages have closer origins with slavic languages (eastern European) than with romance ones.
Also some slavic languages can have also latin downloads.

If you want to speak about similarities the languages of different European linguistical groups, so speak about "European" languages, not "W. European" languages.
Once again, the two main West European languages groups don't share more together than with slavic languages. More than that, by talking about "western european languages" you split in two the romance group and put Romania appart.
Sander   Sat Oct 15, 2005 10:13 am GMT
For instance, did you know that "bateau" (boat) is a 'Dutch' loan?
Georges   Sat Oct 15, 2005 10:14 am GMT
B.H ! Those Dutch are bloody traitors ! :-)