What makes French a Latin-Germanic mixed language

Lobo   Sat May 09, 2009 1:21 pm GMT
Le francique a connu son extension maximum probablement au début du VIIe siècle à peu près au moment de la disparition complète du gaulois, après quoi il a connu un déclin progressif sous les rois fainéants, donc n'a pas été utilisé assez longtemps en France pour laissé des traces durables.

Charlemagne a dû se préoccuper de l'apprentissage de la langue qui s'était déteriorée dans les monastères avec des clercs de moins en moins instruits qui transmettait une langue de plus en plus vernaculaire, d'où probablement les différences que vous (Ouest, Leasnam et certains autres) croyez provenir du francique, mais qui seraient plutôt dues aux déformations du bas-latin original, qui a toutefois été en partie redressé à partir des efforts de Charlemagne et de ses auxiliaires.
Lobo   Sat May 09, 2009 4:55 pm GMT
De plus, il y a même apparemment un enclave qui couvrirait plus ou moins la Champagne pour aller en Wallonie, où le français n'aurait à peu près jamais été parlé, ce qui expliquerait pourquoi la Belgique dans sa partie sud aurait conservé sa langue romane depuis l'époque de César. Alors le francique ne s'est jamais implanté fermement sur le territoire français.
Lobo   Sat May 09, 2009 4:58 pm GMT
lire: le francique n'aurait jamais... au lieu de ''français''
Lobo   Sat May 09, 2009 5:48 pm GMT
Le français en Gaule c'est un peu l'inverse de l'anglais en (Grande) Bretagne. Le latin s'est bien implanté sur l'ensemble du territoire des Gaules alors qu'en Bretagne le latin n'a été principalement parlé que dans le bassin londonien ce qui fait qu'il a disparu lors des invasions germaniques, alors qu'en Gaule c'est le francique qui ne s'est pas tellement répandu ailleurs que sur l'île de France, ce qui fait qu'il a fini par céder sa place au latin beaucoup plus utilisé par la population environnante.
dean   Sat May 09, 2009 6:12 pm GMT
Ouest, leasnam, you continue not wishing to answer to the fundamental questions that ask you theories: I'll repeat them once again:


If french is made from frankish people who tried to speak latin using a frankish-based structure, bringing with them a lot of frankish words.
1. How can you explain that those structural elements are present in the other romance languages?
2. How do you explain that the lexical elements are also present in the other romance language?
3. Does it mean that the other romance languages are derived from french?
4. If not how can you explain that all of them have integrated the same words the same way AND also the same syntaxical constructions the same way?
5. How do you explain that words like ("guerre" or "blanc", etc.) are not spread in other germanic languages than "Frankish" (which is not even sure). When yourself developped* the idea that words borrow easierly between languages of same families (idea to which I tend to agree)

===================================================

Some good questions there. It will be interesting to see the responses.
Ouest   Sat May 09, 2009 8:30 pm GMT
guest guest Sat May 09, 2009 12:07 pm GMT


5. How do you explain that words like ("guerre" or "blanc", etc.) are not spread in other germanic languages than "Frankish" (which is not even sure). When yourself developped* the idea that words borrow easierly between languages of same families (idea to which I tend to agree)
......
The frankish empire was not french-based. At least in the early medival times. Yourself (or ouest I don't remember) claimed that Frankish was heavily spoken in frenckish empire, even in the today romance speaking areas. If a language should have infulence the others it should have been frankish itself. But then once again, why we don't find those borrowdings in modern German, Duthc, etc. (the borrowding must have been much more efficient between frankish and Dutch - Dutch considered the heir of the first, or in german) While we find them in all romance language?

....
When people said that words like "guerre", or "blanc" were supposed to come from Frankish it was only because those words were not found in the classical latin texts we have... It was a time in wich any non-classical latin words was necesserally coming from a germanic root. But in most of the case this germanic root doesn't exist in most of modern germanic language, and in old trace of Frankish neither... How serious it is? Please answer "Ouest" and "Leasnam".

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The etymology of "guerre" or "blanc" are well documented, and both words are still in use in modern German:

"guerre" comes from Old German "werran", a word that ment "to confuse". It comes probably from an Indogermanic root word meaning "to turn around" and "to bend". Until the 16th century, the Middle High German substantive "werra" meaning guerre/war was use. In modern German, "Kriegswirren" still means war. "werran" is the root of modern German words like: verwirren,Verworrenheit, verworren, entwirren, Gewirr, Wirrwarr, Kriegswirren etc.

"blanc", the French word that describes the color of this page's background, stems from Old German "blanch", "blank" meaning white, shiny, bright. It is still in use in modern German with meaning shiny, bright. Other modern German words with "blank" are

blank [ugs.]
cash-strapped {adj} [coll.]

blank [ugs.: mittellos]
broke {adj} [coll.]

blank gewetzt
(worn) shiny {adj} {pp}

blank poliert
brightly polished

blank putzen
to furbish

blank reiben
to furbish

blank ziehen [z.B. Säbel]
to unsheathe

(from http://www.dict.cc/deutsch-englisch/blank.html)
CID   Sat May 09, 2009 10:48 pm GMT
<<Anyone wth a minimum of culture would confirm you that the western civilisation is based on Greece and Rome.>>

Western cilvilisation is built upon more than just Greece and Rome, although those are the only two that seem to get the credit for it. They certainly are not the only two who deserve it. Western culture is Frankish/Carolingian < Roman < Greek < Phoenecian < Egyptian--it took all of them to achieve what we have today. Without the Germans in the Middle Ages we wouldn't know anything of Rome and Greece.

The Roman Empire fell because it was flawed. See below.

"In 476 A.D. the western Roman Empire, which had ruled modern-day Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and England for centuries collapsed due to a combination of economic decline and drastically reduced military strength, allowing invasion by barbarian tribes originating in southern Scandinavia and modern-day northern Germany. According to many authors, the main causes for the fall of any empire are internal, such as racial, religious or political divisions within the country. Also, warfare and economic crisis may contribute to the empire's collapse. In England, several Germanic tribes invaded, including the Angles and Saxons. In Gaul (modern-day France, Belgium and parts of Switzerland) and Germania Inferior (The Netherlands), the Franks settled, in Iberia the Visigoths invaded and Italy was conquered by the Ostrogoths. Christianity ceased to be the dominant religion in these lands and much of Roman culture disappeared. Only Ireland, which had never been ruled by Rome, remained Christian throughout this time."


<<By the way if italians came to USA they followed CRISTOFARO COLOMBO,AMERICO VESPUCCI(AMERICA????!!!!),GIOVANNI DA VERRAZZANO,ENRICO FERMI,GIOVANNI CABOTO,FIORELLO LA GUARDIA,AMADEO GIANNINI ( founder of Bank of Italy, S.F. 1904,than Bank of Italy and America, 1920, and finally Bank of America today.FILIPPO MAZZEI, friend of T.JEFFERSON, who's thesis on Equality of Man was included in the Bill of Rights of USA;WILLIAM PACA, signer of Declaration of Indipendence; CONSTANTINO BRUMIDI,known as the Mchelangelo of USA, for the dome of the CAPITOL;MEUCCI ANTONIO,>>

You conveniently seem to have left off the ancestors of the native Americans who were pioneers from Asia, Gunnbjörn Ulfsson, Bjarni Herjólfsson, and Leif Eriksson.
comme greg   Sat May 09, 2009 10:59 pm GMT
<<Il faut alors croire ce que je vous redis et qui est documenté; que les Francs ont été romanisé assez rapidement à partir du IIIe siècle dans certains cas, qu'ils ont abandonné leur langue au profit du latin déjà bien établis et adopté un mode de vie plus romain, ce qui allait de soi surtout après les victoires de Clovis et son baptême sous l'influence de Clothilde, même si les rois et leurs cours ont continué à parler le francique jusqu'au couronnement de Hugues Capet, un peu comme aujourd'hui avec le latin pour les prêtres, mais que la population n'apprend plus, malgré notre capacité d'instruction plus élevé qu'à cette époque. >>


Preuves?
Guest   Sat May 09, 2009 11:15 pm GMT
<<1. How can you explain that those structural elements are present in the other romance languages? >>

Some are, others are not. This is consistent with the assertion of Ouest.

<<2. How do you explain that the lexical elements are also present in the other romance language? >>

Again, some are and some are not. Modern Spanish does not have the same "bleu" as Italian does ("blu"). Old Spanish had it as "blavo"), yet this etymon is attested in all germanic languages (O.E. blaw/blaewen, OFris blaw, Dutch blauw, OHG blao, ONorse blar). Spanish and Italian do not have "choisir" (Eng "choose" Dutch "kiezen", Ger "kiesen", Icel "kjosa")

3. Does it mean that the other romance languages are derived from french? hmm, that's a novel idea...

4. If not how can you explain that all of them have integrated the same words the same way AND also the same syntaxical constructions the same way?

They don't all have the same lexical terms nor syntactical structures. Spanish only uses "haber" as an auxillary verb where French & Italian use both avoir/etre; avere/essere

5. How do you explain that words like ("guerre" or "blanc", etc.) are not spread in other germanic languages than "Frankish" (which is not even sure). When yourself developped* the idea that words borrow easierly between languages of same families (idea to which I tend to agree)

"Guerre" was borrowed as a substitute word in Romance to replace "bellum" due to "bellum"'s coalescence with "bellus" ("beautiful"). Both forms in Italian/Spanish would end up being "bello" and there would be ambiguity between the two words. So when presented the chance to switch one word out (in this case "bellum") it was taken.

F blanc (adj.) < Gmc; cf. OE blanca white horse, OHG blanch bright, white

Someone has already explained above why some words borrowed into Romance were marginal words in Germanic and not the main words for such concepts.
Stan   Sun May 10, 2009 12:13 am GMT
<<I would aslo has that if by hypothesis we would at all price follow Ouest/leasnam theories that claim that those structures come from the mix of Franksih with latin in northern france, the only valid hypothesis would be that all romance languages (including Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Etc) not only borrowed some supposed germanic-based words from french, but completly DERIVE from french... In this case romance languages should be not "romance" language but "french languages"... A bit hard position to maintain.
>>

*Or*, there was more than one influence from the germanic languages. We know from history that influence from Germanic mercenaries in the Romanc legions was a driving force behind the development of the vulgar form of Latin from that of Classical. So not all germanic elements in languages like Spanish and Italian come from Frankish, but from earlier germanic contact.
Guest   Sun May 10, 2009 12:29 am GMT
continued*

<4. If not how can you explain that all of them have integrated the same words the same way AND also the same syntaxical constructions the same way?

They don't all have the same lexical terms nor syntactical structures. Spanish only uses "haber" as an auxillary verb where French & Italian use both avoir/etre; avere/essere
>

In Portuguese there is no exact equivalent to the present perfect tense like in other Romance languages (Sp. haber + past part). It is also worthy to note that Portugal is furthest away from the centre of Germanic influence: Northern Italy and Gaul.
Lucca, Pietro   Sun May 10, 2009 3:59 am GMT
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G7   Sun May 10, 2009 12:54 pm GMT
....reminds me of “THE OX AND THE FROG”, a fable by Jean de La Fontaine
PARISIEN   Sun May 10, 2009 1:05 pm GMT
<< In Portuguese there is no exact equivalent to the present perfect tense like in other Romance languages (Sp. haber + past part). It is also worthy to note that Portugal is furthest away from the centre of Germanic influence: Northern Italy and Gaul. >>

-- Exemple non valide.

Primitivement, l'auxiliaire portugais pour les temps composés était 'haver'.

Mais c'est un fait que dans les langues romanes autres que le français, le champ sémantique de 'avoir' tend à être colonisé par 'tenere', 'tener' etc. En portugais, 'ter' est allé jusqu'à supplanter 'haver' dans les temps composés. En espagnol, 'tener' est presque le verbe normal pour 'avoir'. En italien, le phénomène existe mais est moins fréquent.

Tout ce qu'on peut conclure est que le voisinage des langues germaniques a *peut-être* retenu le français d'évoluer dans cette direction.

A propos, en Italie, significativement, la substitution de 'avere' par 'tenere' devient plus commune à mesure qu'on va vers le Sud.
Lobo   Sun May 10, 2009 2:29 pm GMT
comme greg:« <<Il faut alors croire ce que je vous redis et qui est documenté; que les Francs ont été romanisé assez rapidement à partir du IIIe siècle dans certains cas, qu'ils ont abandonné leur langue au profit du latin déjà bien établis et adopté un mode de vie plus romain, ce qui allait de soi surtout après les victoires de Clovis et son baptême sous l'influence de Clothilde, même si les rois et leurs cours ont continué à parler le francique jusqu'au couronnement de Hugues Capet, un peu comme aujourd'hui avec le latin pour les prêtres, mais que la population n'apprend plus, malgré notre capacité d'instruction plus élevé qu'à cette époque. >>


Preuves? »

La meilleure preuve que je peux te donner, c'est que les Francs rédigeaient toutes leurs lois en Latin, même si les écrits ne sont pas légion, on a qu'à penser au concile de Tours qui nous explique que les homélies ne seront plus prononcées en latin, mais en tudesque du côté de la Germanie, et en langue romane du côté de la Francie, pour que la population puisse miuex comprendre ce qui y est dit.