Catalan a Frankish-Romance+Gothic-Romance hybrid?
greg Sat Dec 20, 2008 10:12 am GMT
"Ouest : « Shouldn´t Catalan better be called a Frankish-Romance+Gothic-Romance hybrid? Neither "Gaulois" nor "Iberian" have had any substantial influence on Catalan...... ».
Non, le catalan, tout comme le wallon, le gascon, le lombard et l'arpitan, est une langue romane. "
No doubt that Catalan is Romance language! I wanted to say that all the features that characterize Catalan and make it distinct from Spanish or French stem from the fact that Catalonia (i.e. "Gothlandia") was occupied by the Visigoths and then by the Franks during the decisive period. Almost all Romance dialects are spoken in regions that are identical with former Germanic realms (Langues d'oïl in former Nneustria, Lombardic in Lombardia, Franco-Provencal in former Burgundy, etc. etc.).
The Visigoths didn't settle in Catalonia but in North Central Spain.
Catalonia was part of their kingdom but not the the core of it, so it's strange that the Catalan language was influenced by people who didn't live there.
Catalonia means the land of the Cathars, a medieval heretic movement. The Cathar cross is the symbol of Occitania nowadays, a land very closely related to Catalonia.
La Hola: Are "broa" related with "Brot" and "sopar" with "Suppe"?
Acccording to the diciitonaries of the portuguese language, "broa" stems from Gothic "brauth". So, "broa" must be related to "Brot" and "bread".
Guest Sat Dec 20, 2008 2:42 pm GMT
The Visigoths didn't settle in Catalonia but in North Central Spain.
Catalonia was part of their kingdom but not the the core of it, so it's strange that the Catalan language was influenced by people who didn't live there.
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Franks were for centuries rulers of what is today Catalonia, they made that the dialect is distinct from Spanish.
Ouest : « No doubt that Catalan is Romance language! »
C'est bien de le reconnaître.
Ouest : « I wanted to say that all the features that characterize Catalan and make it distinct from Spanish or French stem from the fact that Catalonia (i.e. "Gothlandia") was occupied by the Visigoths and then by the Franks during the decisive period. ? »
Rapide rechute... Bon alors allons-y et prenons ta remarque au pied de la la lettre. Puisque tu déclares que ***TOUS*** les traits distinctifs du catalan vis-à-vis du français ou du castillan sont d'origine wisigothofranque, tu n'auras donc aucun mal à en identifier cinq parmi ceux-ci ; ni aucune peine à dire en quoi ces cinq traits distincts du castillan ou du français se rattachent soit au monde wisigoth, soit à la langue franque. Et j'imagine également — pour peu qu'on pousse ton affirmation jusqu'à sa conclusion logique — que tu es mesure de démontrer qu'aucune spécificité catalane d'ordre linguistique n'est postérieure au haut moyen-âge...
... les traits distinctifs du catalan vis-à-vis du français ou du castillan sont d'origine wisigothofranque, .....
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I say that the features that characterize Catalan and make it distinct from Spanish or French stem from the fact that Catalonia (i.e. "Gothlandia") was occupied by the Visigoths and then by the Franks during the decisive period, not that they are linguistically "d'origine wisigothofranque". The Franks made Catalonia a political unit distinct from the rest of the Romance area - the language of Catalonia was thereby isolated and made it´s own way.
<<Catalonia means the land of the Cathars, a medieval heretic movement. The Cathar cross is the symbol of Occitania nowadays, a land very closely related to Catalonia. >>
The exact origin of the name "Catalonia" is unknown; but the most plausible and widely accepted origin is that it derives from *Gautha landia - "land of the Goths" who conquered it and named it after themselves (like England for the Angles; France for the Franks, etc. --typical name convention).
The homeland of the Visigoths who conquered Catalonia was "Gotland", Sweden; so the theory has some basis (cf. "New England" named by the English settlers in America in reference to their original homeland)
Why would anyone name themselves and their country after a heretical movement and use that as their national identity? regardless of any coincidental cross connection, which is a very weak support
Catalan is mostly a Romance language in terms of its grammar, nouns and genders as well as most of the written lexicon.
Catalan is nearer to French than Spanish, in the sense that unlike Central and Southern Spain, the Arabic influence was far less intense than in Spanish. Whereas there are at least 4400 Arabic words in Spanish, with more than 1500 Arabic place-names in Spain, the number does NOT exceed 400 in Catalan or 275 Arabic words in French.
THE GREAT TRUTH IS THIS:
Catalonia's name comes from the Goths who called it Gothalonia.
The Goths came from Southern Sweden, in Gotaland, near Gothenburg.
The Ancient Germanic word most used in the Romance languages (except Romanian) is the word Werra.
Werra is a Gothic/ Frankish word that gave birth to Guerra in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Guerre in French. Guerra is truly Germanic.
The Germanic Frankish influence was much greater in French than the Gothic influence in Catalan, Spanish/Portuguese and Italian put together.
There are at least 880 Teutonic Frankish words in French, as against 177 Gothic words in Catalan or 100 Wisigothic words in Spanish.
French is 20% Frankish in terms of the lexicon, Middle Age warfare and pronounciation as against 3% in Gothic influence in Spanish.
<<Catalan is nearer to French than Spanish, in the sense that unlike Central and Southern Spain, the Arabic influence was far less intense than in Spanish. Whereas there are at least 4400 Arabic words in Spanish, with more than 1500 Arabic place-names in Spain, the number does NOT exceed 400 in Catalan or 275 Arabic words in French. >>
Catalan is nearer to Spanish than to French, in fact Catalan and Spanish belong to the same sub-branch of Romance languages: Ibero-Romance, whereas French belongs to Galo-Romance. The Arabic influence in Spanish is minimal as it limits itself to vocabulary and many of those words are seldom used. The same happens with Catalan, specially with the Valencian and Majorcan varieties that also have many Arabic words. The arabic words only link Catalan to Spanish as both languages evolved in contact with Arabic speaking zones. As for the place-names in Arabic in Spain, the vast majority are in Catalan speaking zones, specially in Valencia.
I would say that Catalan is an offshoot of Old Occitan, which even today does not differ all too much from Occitan, still being closer to it than to any other Romance language.
<<I would say that Catalan is an offshoot of Old Occitan, which even today does not differ all too much from Occitan, still being closer to it than to any other Romance language.
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I think so as well, but unlike Occitan, Catala is considered by the linguists as Ibero-Romance, and Occitan is still Gallo-Romance. It's somewhat inconsistent, but I guess that linguistics is not an exact science. It seems to me that Catalan and Occitan are in the middle between Spanish and French but Catalan is just a bit closer to Spanish and Occitan is a bit closer to French. Curiously French in the Middle Ages was much more similar to Occitan than nowadays, but it evolved in strange ways .
>><<I would say that Catalan is an offshoot of Old Occitan, which even today does not differ all too much from Occitan, still being closer to it than to any other Romance language.
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I think so as well, but unlike Occitan, Catala is considered by the linguists as Ibero-Romance, and Occitan is still Gallo-Romance. It's somewhat inconsistent, but I guess that linguistics is not an exact science. It seems to me that Catalan and Occitan are in the middle between Spanish and French but Catalan is just a bit closer to Spanish and Occitan is a bit closer to French. Curiously French in the Middle Ages was much more similar to Occitan than nowadays, but it evolved in strange ways .<<
Some linguists may call it "Ibero-Romance", but that does not make them right in and of itself. Calling it "Ibero-Romance" seems to me to be more political than anything else, honestly. Occitan itself is quite Gallo-Romance in character, with many of its seemingly non-Gallo-Romance-type attributes being more just a matter of it not sharing many of the innovations of Oïl and Franco-Provençal. It does not make sense to call Catalan "Ibero-Romance" simply because it is geographically sited closer to Ibero-Romance than Occitan is; also, the limited degree of borrowing and areal influence present does not count as such.
Occitan should be considered Ibero-Romance too. It shares more similarities with Spanish than with French.
"Some linguists may call it "Ibero-Romance", but that does not make them right in and of itself. Calling it "Ibero-Romance" seems to me to be more political than anything else, honestly. Occitan itself is quite Gallo-Romance in character, with many of its seemingly non-Gallo-Romance-type attributes being more just a matter of it not sharing many of the innovations of Oïl and Franco-Provençal. It does not make sense to call Catalan "Ibero-Romance" simply because it is geographically sited closer to Ibero-Romance than Occitan is; also, the limited degree of borrowing and areal influence present does not count as such."
I agree with you. I think that Occitan/Provencal, Catalan and the Gallo Italian dialects are in reallity part of the same linguistic group. All the languages of this group were corrupted by the national states that promoted the languages of Ile de France, Castilla and Tuscany as language of all the rispective nations.