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Pelayo
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Topic: Development of Romance languages... Posted: 30-Oct-2005 at 16:33 |
for you linguist experts.
French to me has a unique sound (native spanish(1) & english(2) speaker) and I find it interesting how that local patois or provencal latin developed into the parisian language we hear today.
Was it the celtic influence, the frankish input, the time period of conquest that developed that peculiar and not unpleasant sound?
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Exarchus
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Posted: 02-Nov-2005 at 13:52 |
The history of the French language is very complicated, first it's not the Parisian French we speak but the Tourrangeau one, that was spoken in Tours.
This is why today the purest French is considered to be from Tours.
First, you have to know Gaul was not homogenous at all back to the pre-roman era.
The main group were the Gauls, Brennus, Vercingetorix and so on. They spoke a celtic language which was a Gallic language, the Gaulish one.
http://http://www.orbilat.com/Encyclopaedia/G/Gaulish_langua ge.html
This page show an overview of it, as you can see it was fairly close to Latin already with some differences though. Aside of the Gauls the southwest bank of the Garonne River spoke Aquitanian, a now extinct Basque related language.
The Roman colonies like Narbonne spoke Latin and the Greek colonies like Marseille spoke Greek.
Under the Roman Empire, the Greek colonies switched to vulgar latin while the gauls would adopt it fairly easily too due to the similarities, the Aquitanians would retain their non indo-european language for a longer time.
In the 5th century, the Aquitanians started to devellop their own Romance language called Gascon. But it came from the Aquitanians to the latin so it has a very distinct spelling and pronounciation. The southern languages, Languedocian, Provencal and Catalan develloped from one side, Corsican also develloped as an Italo-Romance group.
In the north, the Germanics left a bigger influence on the spelling.
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/o/oa/oath_of_s trasbourg.htm
The Oath of Strasbourg between Charles the Bald and Louis the German is remembered as the first text in old French, and the first text in a distinct romance language to Latin. It's writen in both Old French and Old German.
Old French: Pro Deo amur et pro christian poblo et nostro commun salvament, 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 Ludher nul plaid numquam prindrai qui meon vol cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit.
Old High German: in godes minna ind in thes christanes folches ind unser bedhero gehaltnissi fon thesemo dage frammordes so fram so mir got geuuizci indi mahd furgibit so haldih thesan minan bruodher soso man mit rehtu sinan bruodher scal in thiu thaz er mig so sama duo indi mit ludheren in nohheiniu thing ne gegango the minan uillon imo ce scadhen uuerdhen
Old French: Si Lodhuvigs sagrament que son fradre Karlo jurat conservat, et Karlus meos sendra de suo part non lostanit, si jo returnar non l'int pois, ne jo ne neuls cui eo returnar int pois, in nulla aiudha contra Lodhuuvig nun li iv er.
Old High German: oba karl then eid then er sinemo bruodher ludhuuuige gesuor geleistit indi ludhuuuig min herro then er imo gesuor forbrihchit ob ih inan es iruuenden ne mag noh ih noh thero nohhein then ih es iruuenden mag uuidhar karle imo ce follusti ne uuirdhit. |
The Breton would settle in Brittany, comming from the British Isles and Germanic would settle in large amount in Flanders (Nord Pas de Calais), Lorraire (Metz and Nancy) and Alsace, there the Germanic languages would prevail as the Flemish, Frankish and Alsatian languages.
Then, in the middle ages, we could put this distinction:
http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/monde/langues_celtiques.htm
There you have a good desciption of the Celtic languages. Apart the Gaulish about little is known.
The big French group could be descripted as heterogenous, people in Paris had a strong accent, while people from the Loire Valley had a "flatter" one. East of the Loire Valley, Gallo develloped as a mix of French and Breton.
Poitevin and Saintongais had some features of the Occitan Group, Champenois and Picard had some minor differences too. Norman had a slightly different spelling and some Norse vocabulary, especially about maritime term... All this big French group was mutually intelligible without problems most likely.
Franco-Provencal is a subgroup having features of both French and Occitan, it was spoken in Savoy, French speaking Switzerland and Aoste in Italy.
The Occitan group was characterised by the word used for "yes" that was "oc", in contrario of the "oil" used in northern France.
This is a rather extensive map, I develloped Gascon, most of those languages develloped more or less the same way from vulgar latin apart Gascon.
The Basque is a direct descendant of the Aquitanian language. It's not indo-european.
Corsica had an Italo-Romance language, sounding like the one spoken in Sardaigna.
Catalan is fairly close to Occitan and develloped nearly the same way until the rise of Catalan sensibility proclaimed it apart of Occitan.
Frankish, Flemish and Alsatian are Germanic languages with a different history.
Finally, Franis I King of France, made French of Tours the language for administrations and parliaments.
Richelieu founded the Academie Nationale to regulate it.
Finally, it was decided everyone should speak it and adopt it.
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Jhangora
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Posted: 02-Nov-2005 at 14:21 |
I'm not a linguist Pelayo n I may be drifting from the topic.I read in a novel about a village on the French-German border.They spoke a language which was a mix of French n German.
What does that language/dialect sound like.French is one of the sweetest tongues in the worl d while German is one of the hardest on ears.
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pekau
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Posted: 24-Jan-2007 at 15:41 |
Wait a tick, Jhangora. That's really biased... oh wait, you got suspended. Figures.
If you look at the general pattern of Romance langauge areas... they are generally from Southern Europe. Could the Romans have been responsible for developement of Romance language, or no...?
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Decebal
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Posted: 24-Jan-2007 at 17:01 |
Uhhhh, pekau, why do you think they call them Romance languages? The various dialects that coalesced into the modern languages of French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, Galician and Romanche are all derived from Latin: the differences are explained by the various external differences and lingustic drift.
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pekau
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Posted: 24-Jan-2007 at 19:08 |
What about English? That's from Latin... right?
I am not an expert with languages, as you already found out...
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Dan Carkner
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Posted: 24-Jan-2007 at 21:54 |
Very interesting pictures, thanks for posting them!
If anyone is interested in a good read, there is a book called The Story of French, that traces the history and current state of French in the world, but it's not at all boring. It looks at it from many fresh and worthy angles. http://www.amazon.com/Story-French-Jean-Benoit-Nadeau/dp/0312341830
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Leonardo
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Posted: 25-Jan-2007 at 02:50 |
From the page cited by Exarchus ( http://www.orbilat.com/Encyclopaedia/G/Gaulish_language.html):
"When Cicero's brother Quintus was besieged by the Nervii in Gaul, Julius Caesar sent him a secret message -- in Greek, not Latin, so it could not be read by the enemy if they intercepted it. This is because the Latin and Gaulish languages were very similar to each other, whereas Greek was only a distant relation (and also had a different alphabet). "
Interesting, never heard of it before
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Posted: 25-Jan-2007 at 08:36 |
Originally posted by pekau
What about English? That's from Latin... right? |
No, English is a Germanic language, together with German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, etc. It does have many latinate words though, more than the other Germanic languages, because of the Norman conquest. Nonetheless its grammar and most of its vocabulary are still Germanic.
Edited by Mixcoatl - 25-Jan-2007 at 08:38
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Cryptic
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Posted: 09-Mar-2007 at 16:30 |
As a side note, French began to drift away from Latin several centuries before Spanish, Portuguese and Italian did. Thus Spanish and Italian share more vocabulary and pronunciation with each other than they do with French. I am unsure about Romanian.
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Decebal
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Posted: 09-Mar-2007 at 20:12 |
Nobody's really sure about the exact evolution of Romanian, due to the lack of available sources during its formation. I can tell you that it is actually very close to Latin (and was the only modern latin language to have kept quite a few peculiarities from Latin). It also has some very strong slavic influences. One thing which is rather interesting about Romanian is its monolithism: almost alone among the languages of the world with a significant number of speakers, it has virtually no dialects. Thoguh some would consider the 3 related languages of Aromanian, Meglenoromanian and Istroromanian to be dialects of Romanian...
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sreenivasarao s
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Posted: 20-Apr-2007 at 00:02 |
Originally posted by Cryptic
Spanish and Italian share more vocabulary and pronunciation with each other than they do with French.
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I agree . Please see my post " the language of crusaders" under Linguistics.
Regards
Edited by sreenivasarao s - 20-Apr-2007 at 01:31
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Posted: 17-Jul-2007 at 18:52 |
Originally posted by Pelayo
I find it interesting how that local patois or provencal latin developed into the parisian language we hear today.
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Tha "patois" (derogative word to refer to non-french languages of France) or Provensal Latin didn't developed into Parisian Language! Provenal or Occitan has nothing to do with French, as well as Catalan has nothing to do with Spanish (I mean, apart from roots) but they are different languages.
Edited by Carles - 17-Jul-2007 at 18:52
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Sarmat
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Posted: 17-Jul-2007 at 19:28 |
Originally posted by Decebal
Nobody's really sure about the exact evolution of Romanian, due to the lack of available sources during its formation. I can tell you that it is actually very close to Latin (and was the only modern latin language to have kept quite a few peculiarities from Latin). It also has some very strong slavic influences. One thing which is rather interesting about Romanian is its monolithism: almost alone among the languages of the world with a significant number of speakers, it has virtually no dialects. Thoguh some would consider the 3 related languages of Aromanian, Meglenoromanian and Istroromanian to be dialects of Romanian... |
Well, Russian also doesn't have any dialects.
But I still think small differences exist between "Romanian dialects". For example some words which are used in Moldovan Romanian or Bessarabian Romanian (the Romanian language spoken in the republic of Moldova) are not used in Romania.
For example poama is grapes in Moldova, but Romanians call grapes stuguri etc.
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gcle2003
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Posted: 18-Jul-2007 at 08:29 |
Originally posted by Mixcoatl
Originally posted by pekau
What about English? That's from Latin... right? |
No, English is a Germanic language, together with German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, etc. It does have many latinate words though, more than the other Germanic languages, because of the Norman conquest. Nonetheless its grammar and most of its vocabulary are still Germanic.
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I wouldn't say 'most' either of grammar or vocabulary. In fact the grammar is usually closer to French than German, although a lot of the time it isn't like either, since it has developed more in the last 500 years or so. No noun declension for instance puts it closer to French, whereas no grammatical gender (apart from physical sex), and the freedom to use words as either nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs pretty much at will is not allowed in German or French. Intonation and pitch are also much more important in English than in French or German (though maybe no more so than in Norwegian or Swedish).
On another tack, ever since I first worked in Portugal it's interested me that something that's written in Portuguese often sounds French when spoken. Take 'estupido' which written looks just like Spanish, but when your taxi-driver shouts it at another driver it comes out as 'stupide' just as in French.
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Sarmat
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Posted: 18-Jul-2007 at 10:19 |
Originally posted by gcle2003
I wouldn't say 'most' either of grammar or vocabulary. In fact the grammar is usually closer to French than German, although a lot of the time it isn't like either, since it has developed more in the last 500 years or so. |
I wouldn't say that; English grammar is quite different from French one. On the other hand, I see a lot of similarities between English and Danish and other Scandinavian laguages' grammar.
The majority of Germanic invaders to England was from Scandinavia, not from the territory of modern Germany.
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gcle2003
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Posted: 19-Jul-2007 at 09:24 |
Originally posted by Sarmat12
Originally posted by gcle2003
I wouldn't say 'most' either of grammar or vocabulary. In fact the grammar is usually closer to French than German, although a lot of the time it isn't like either, since it has developed more in the last 500 years or so. |
I wouldn't say that; English grammar is quite different from French one. On the other hand, I see a lot of similarities between English and Danish and other Scandinavian laguages' grammar.
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Well, yes, there are similarities. But English people usually find French easier to learn than German, largely because the grammars are more similar. Word-order for instance is more alike between French and English, and neither of them still decline nouns, like German does. Simply bunging on an 's' to get the plural also makes French more like English. French and English sentence structure are also much less complex.
I'm talking here of course about the grammar and syntax only: intonation and pronunciation are a very different matter. And, as I indicated, English is much further along the path to becoming an isolating language than either of French and German (or any other European language I'm aware of).
The majority of Germanic invaders to England was from Scandinavia, not from the territory of modern Germany. |
That of course is true. But none of the Germanic ones has been anything like as influenced by Romance ones as English has been by Norman-French - which is why there is such a clear distinction between Anglo-Saxon, which no-one except specialists in England understands any more, and English.
Edited by gcle2003 - 19-Jul-2007 at 09:25
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Sarmat
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Posted: 19-Jul-2007 at 10:41 |
Originally posted by gcle2003
That of course is true. But none of the Germanic ones has been anything like as influenced by Romance ones as English has been by Norman-French - which is why there is such a clear distinction between Anglo-Saxon, which no-one except specialists in England understands any more, and English. |
I totally agree, with you that English is the most romanicized Germanic language. Most of the vocabularly definetely comes from Latin.
I just meant that English is still a Germanic language and IMO it was put in this group due to the grammar.
Not all Germanic languages' grammars are similar to the German one. Scandinavian Germanic languages' grammar is a good example. German grammar is actually more complicated than the grammar of Dannish and Swedish.
At the same time, English and Scandinavian languages share a lot of similar grammatical rules, while we can not say that about English and French.
Edited by Sarmat12 - 19-Jul-2007 at 10:45
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gcle2003
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Posted: 19-Jul-2007 at 11:27 |
Originally posted by Sarmat12
Originally posted by gcle2003
That of course is true. But none of the Germanic ones has been anything like as influenced by Romance ones as English has been by Norman-French - which is why there is such a clear distinction between Anglo-Saxon, which no-one except specialists in England understands any more, and English. |
I totally agree, with you that English is the most romanicized Germanic language. Most of the vocabularly definetely comes from Latin.
I just meant that English is still a Germanic language and IMO it was put in this group due to the grammar.
Not all Germanic languages' grammars are similar to the German one. Scandinavian Germanic languages' grammar is a good example. German grammar is actually more complicated than the grammar of Dannish and Swedish.
At the same time, English and Scandinavian languages share a lot of similar grammatical rules, while we can not say that about English and French. |
I quoted a couple of cases where you can: depicting the plural by a simple 's' is one. Putting the definite article at the front of the noun instead of the end is another (at least compared to Danish, the only Scandinavian one I know much about). Danish doesn't decline verbs. Danish still has grammatical gender - it's 'huset' not 'husen' and so on - but of course so does French with 'la maison' not 'le maison'.
I admit I was originally concentrating on the differences with German as opposed to those with French, and the Scandinavian languages are much closer to English grammatically than German is. In a lot of cases however, that's where all three, English, Scandinavian and French follow the same pattern (particularly in word order). That's true increasingly with verb declension which is diminishing in English, and, if you listen to the sound rather than the spelling, is diminishing also in French.
Of course the reasons for some of this similarity (as opposed to German) may be that French is also partly a (west?) Germanic language.
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Sarmat
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Posted: 19-Jul-2007 at 11:56 |
Originally posted by gcle2003
Of course the reasons for some of this similarity (as opposed to German) may be that French is also partly a (west?) Germanic language. |
Yes, that's right. To my knowledge, while English is the most romanicized Germanic language, French is the most Germanized Romance language.
Edited by Sarmat12 - 19-Jul-2007 at 12:00
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