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what makes English Germanic?
Brennus : si « Norman French » équivaut à la terminologie habituelle (franco-normand, anglo-normand, anglo-français) alors cette dénomination est frappée des mêmes inconvénients ; à savoir imprécision et ambiguïté. Vois-tu, « franco-normand » et « Norman French » conduisent l'esprit à penser qu'il s'agit d'une langue française mais normande sans plus de place pour toute autre nuance. Et pourtant, des nuances il y en a.
En premier lieu le « franco-normand » de Normandie n'est pas tout à fait le « franco-normand » des Îles britanniques, non parce que le dernier serait truffé d'anglicismes (il n'en fut rien), mais plutôt parce que l'oïl occidental n'a pas influencé le premier comme il a influencé le second. Comme tu l'as dit à juste titre, le « franco-normand » de Normandie relève de l'oïl septentrional ou normanno-picard. En revanche, le « franco-normand » des Îles britanniques a également été la langue de la cour angevine (oïl occidental). C'est la première raison pour laquelle la combinaison (franco)+(normand) ou bien (Norman)+(French) me semble tout à fait hasardeuse.
La seconde c'est que l'armée d'invasion et d'occupation de l'Angleterre n'était pas exclusivement composée de Normands. On y trouvait des locuteurs de nombreuses zones d'oïl.
La troisième : la Normandie est elle-même traversée par la ligne Joret (un faisceau d'isoglosses) qui délimite la région en deux —> Normandie où l'on parlait une forme d'oïl occidental + Normandie où l'on parlait une forme d'oïl septentrional.
La quatrième c'est que le terme Fr <normand> ou An <Normand> s'applique aujourd'hui à une langue d'oïl (ou plutôt deux) différente(s) de la langue française (une autre langue d'oïl) : il s'agit des langues d'oïl traditionnellement parlées en Normandie, comme le(s) wallon(s) est(sont) traditionnellement parlé en Wallonie et le(s) picard(s) en Picardie.
Il me paraît plus important de souligner ce qui rattache le « franco-normand » ou « Norman French » à l'univers de l'ancien français au lieu de suggérer — à tort — qu'il puisse s'agir d'une langue d'oïl distincte de l'ancien français. Il est important de le faire, non par coquetterie "nationaliste", mais par souci d'exactitude linguistique : la langue officielle de la cour des rois d'Angleterre médiévale était ***L'ANCIEN FRANÇAIS***.
Le propre de l'ancien français était d'être soumis à une variation importante, mais ça restait de l'ancien français. Il est d'ailleurs remarquable de constater l'extraordinaire homogénéité entre les deux formes d'ancien français qui pourtant ont suivi des cours différents : l'ancien français du roi de France (l'ancien français capétien, le bel françois) et l'ancien français du roi d'Angleterre (l'ancien français d'Outremanche).
En résumé, la tournure « franco-normand » ou « Norman French » n'est ni heureuse, ni exacte, ni fidèle à la réalité. Le terme « outremanchais » ou « ancien français d'Outremanche » me paraît plus factuel, plus neutre.
Well, it´s interesting that French itself sounds much more like Dutch or German than other Romance languages like Italian, Spanish and even Portuguese which all are much closer to each other than they are to French. Some people claim that Portuguese sounds close to French but I really don´t get point of this because except nasal sounds (which are not identical to those of French) and /j/ it´s completely different. We shouldn´t forgett considerable Celtic and especially Germanic influence on phonology of French language. English on other other hand sounds more similar to Scandinavian Germanic languages as Swedish, Danish and Norse.
The number of Germanic and Latin words in English is about the same, although the vast majority of the most common words, words used in normal, everyday, speech - such as "the" - are of Anglo-Saxon, Germanic origin.
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Vocabulary
Germanic words (which include all the basics such as pronouns and conjunctions) tend to be shorter than the Latinate words of English, and more common in ordinary speech. The longer Latinate words are regarded by many as more elegant or educated. However, the excessive use of Latinate words is considered by some to be either pretentious (as in the stereotypical policeman's talk of "apprehending the suspect") or an attempt to obfuscate an issue. George Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language" gives a thorough treatment of this feature of English.
An English speaker is often able to choose between Germanic and Latinate synonyms: "come" or "arrive"; "sight" or "vision"; "freedom" or "liberty." Often there is a choice between a Germanic word (oversee), a Latin word (supervise), and a French word derived from the same Latin word (survey). The richness of the language arises from the variety of different meanings and nuances such synonyms have from each other, enabling the speaker to express fine variations or shades of thought. Familiarity with the etymology of groups of synonyms can give English speakers greater control over their linguistic register.
An exception to this and a peculiarity perhaps unique to English is that the nouns for meats are commonly different from, and unrelated to, those for the animals from which they are produced, the animal commonly having a Germanic name and the meat having a French-derived one. Examples include: deer and venison; cow and beef; or swine/pig and pork. This is assumed to be a result of the aftermath of the Norman invasion, where a French-speaking elite were the consumers of the meat, produced by English-speaking lower classes.
In everyday speech, the majority of words will normally be Germanic. If a speaker wishes to make a forceful point in an argument in a very blunt way, Germanic words will usually be chosen. A majority of Latinate words (or at least a majority of content words) will normally be used in more formal speech and writing, such as a courtroom or an encyclopedia article. However, there are other Latinate words that are used normally in everyday speech and do not sound formal. For instance, the words delete, school, text, aunt, uncle, hour, push and plumber are all Latinate.
English is noted for the vast size of its active vocabulary and its fluidity. English easily accepts technical terms into common usage and imports new words and phrases which often come into common usage. Examples of this phenomenon include: cookie, internet and URL (technical terms), as well as genre, über, lingua franca and amigo (imported words/phrases, from French, German, modern Latin, and Spanish, respectively). In addition, slang often provides new meanings for old words and phrases. In fact, this fluidity is so pronounced that a distinction often needs to be made between formal forms of English and contemporary usage. See also: sociolinguistics.
wikipedia.org
And, of course, English has far more words than any other language.
"The th- sound in "that" and "thought" is from Greek, isn't it"
No, it doesn't. The "th" sound - of which there are two of in English - comes from Anglo-Saxon, the parent language. The Anglo-Saxons had two letters to represent these sounds -
the letter Þ þ (thorn) represented the "th" sound we have in words such as "though"
and the letter Ð, ð (eth) represented the "th" sound in we have in words such as "think".
In the Middle Ages, there was a letter in the English alphabet - Y - which looked like the letter Y, but it wasn't. It was derived from the letter þ that the Anglo-Saxons used. In olden times in England, "the" was sometimes written "Ye".
Thorn - The Missing Letter of the English Alphabet
The thorn , Þ þ , is one of the most fascinating of letters and, in a form unrecognisable to the untrained eye, is still used to convey 'olde-worlde' charm. Twee shop fronts may bear the legend 'Ye Olde Shoppe' in an attempt to recreate a feeling of the medieval, and inevitably the word spelled as 'Ye' will be pronounced by all as 'Yee'.
However, 'Ye Olde Shoppe' ought actually to be pronounced as 'The Old Shoppe', because the 'Y' derives from a printed form of the thorn.
A Fuþorc in the Road
The thorn is a letter which originally derived from a rune. This runic alphabet was called fuþorc1 after the sounds of its first six signs and was developed by Germanic peoples at least as early as the 2nd Century AD. Scholars are divided about the fuþorc's origin, but it's agreed that some of the signs in the runic alphabets are derived from Italic or Alpine letter forms and others are probably influenced by Latin and Greek letters.
Though and Through - the 'th' Sounds
The thorn represented a 'th' sound and it's now a moot point whether there was originally a distinction between voiced and unvoiced 'th' sounds, in terms of how they were represented. A voiced 'th' sound is that made in the word 'there'. You can hear the buzzing sound when you stress the 'th' sound. An unvoiced 'th' sound is that made in the word 'think'. It is breathier and does not buzz.
From Giants to Thorns
While several runic alphabets developed from the basic 24-character Elder fuþark, the one we call the Anglo-Saxon fuþorc was the most common. This is distinguished by nine extra characters,2 some altered forms and additional signs. These changes were mostly to accommodate the Old English language. This can be evidenced not only by runes found in the British Isles, but also in changed runic inscriptions in north-west Germany and northern Holland after the Anglo-Saxon invasions (5th Century AD).
The thorn first appeared as the name of a character in the Anglo-Saxon fuþorc, usurping a different name for the same sound and symbol in the Elder fuþark. In the Elder fuþark it was called the þurisaz, meaning 'giant'. This was the third sign in the Elder fuþark, and the thorn retained the same position in the Anglo-Saxon fuþorc.
While there were a few different fuþorcs formed from the basic Elder fuþark, the one we call the Anglo-Saxon Fuþorc was the most common. That which is codified as the Anglo-Saxon fuþorc is distinguished by nine extra characters,3 some altered forms and additional signs. All these changes bring us to a total of 33 runes in the Anglo-Saxon Fuþorc.
A Source-rich Language
The English language is comprised of a hotchpotch of source material combining to form one of the most agile and expressive languages in the world. While using a base of the Anglo-Saxon (Germanic) alphabets, it soon incorporated a great deal from other languages such as Latin, classical Greek (which itself incorporated much from ancient Semitic languages), and French (in two distinct waves).
Ð ð : The other form used in Medieval English to express the 'th' sound was the thok or eth (Ð ð ). It's believed that this form was created by Insular4 scribes crossing their d form.
The Romans appropriated quite a lot from the Greeks, but evidence suggests that they did not adopt the letter theta5 which was used by the Greeks to denote variant 'th' sounds. Instead, they expressed the 'th' sound by using the digraph6 'TH'.
A Medieval Scribe's Dilemma
Medieval English thus contained a variety of signs for the sound 'th' - the digraph 'TH', the thorn , and the eth (or thok ). Scribes ended up using a mixture of these, although some tried to make a distinction between those used for a voiced 'th' sound and the signs used for a voiceless 'th'. As a result, reading medieval texts today can be enormously confusing. Is that a 'y'? Is it a 'p'? Or a 'th'? The problem is compounded by the inclusion of yet another runic sign which made it into Medieval English - the wen7, a symbol that looks very like a thorn , except that the triangular portion sits even higher, giving it a strong look of an angular 'p'.
Even readers at the time often found it difficult to know precisely what the text was saying, given the combination of Latin characters and the remnants from the runic alphabet. Heaven help the reader whose ability to transcribe the various letters and runes (and all their forms) was poor and couldn't work out the meaning from the context! The problem was made worse by the occasional juxtaposition of Latin and Old English texts on the same page, and by the shorthand and unique methods employed by individual scribes in transcribing the letters
The Font of Wisdom
The thorn was particularly popular as a sign for 'th' in Medieval English, but with the advent of printing came a problem. There was no thorn sign in the printing fonts, as they were usually cast outside of England. So, since the sign for thorn slightly resembled the lower-case 'y', that's what was substituted.
The thorn continued to be used, but printing caused its eventual demise from the English alphabet. As mentioned earlier, lingering proof of its existence hangs on in the outmoded 'Ye'.
Our Thorny Past
Is the perseverance of this 'Ye' a thorn in the flesh? Of course, it is a marvellous relic of a runic alphabet no longer used, and reiterates the richness of the English language by reminding us of its fascinating history and various sources. But as the thorn 's legacy, the contrived and archaic 'Ye' should come with a little reminder that it's pronounced as 'The'.
news.bbc.co.uk
"But I don´t understand you Sander, because 60% of the English words are from latin orign and about 20% are Germanic words so, why don´t call it a mix? I agree that English is a product of an evolution but that don´t change the English language history. "
About 83% of the 1000 most common words in English are of Anglo-Saxon origin.
"Old English is predominantly Anglo-Saxon, with very few Celtic words adopted into the language (about a dozen p-Celtic and three or so q-Celtic words).
Old English also borrowed from church Latin (~450 words) and from Old Norse (~50 words). 7th century Christian missions to Britain brought learning and literacy, initially entirely in Latin, but an Old English written language did emerge in the northeast and in the West Saxon kingdom of Alfred the Great in the second half of the 9th century.
The first known written English sentence, "This she-wolf is a reward to my kinsman," is an Anglo-Saxon runic inscription on a gold medallion (about the size of a 50¢ piece) found in Suffolk, dated about AD 450-480.
By 750 AD Old English had evolved into a distinct language separate from the original speech of the Angles and Saxons. Of the 1000 most frequently used words today 83% are of Old English origin. Of our remaining vocabulary about 30% are Anglo-Saxon survivals. Tens of thousands of our current words are of French and Latin origin.
From the 8th to the 11th centuries, Vikings plundered lands adjacent to the Baltic and North Seas, including northeast England. The Danish King Cnut conquered Norway and England, usurping the English throne, in the early 11th century. Large numbers of Scandinavians settled in England throughout the Old English period, giving the language several thousand common words.
As well as most alphabetic characters we use today, Old English included ash æ /a/, thorn þ /th/, eth ð /dh/, and (Runic) wynn w /w/. The þ and ð are still present in Icelandic, and the æ in Danish and Norwegian. "
http://www.peak.org/~jeremy/dictionary/chapters/history.php
Adam,
You articulated that so well. This is what makes English such a great language. It seems as if we have an infinite number of words for conveying various thoughts. We can always pick from a Latinate word or a Germanic word, for virtually anything! This is also a more flexible feature for transitioning between learning Germanic languages and Latin languages, as we almost always have a word in English to relate the other cognates to. If the Norman conquest hadn't occured, you can be certain that English would resemble Romance languages hardly at all. But it did happen, and now English is the richest in vocabulary, and the most fluid language in the world.
Adam : « And, of course, English has far more words than any other language. »
Ceci est faux, bien sûr !
Mais Adam-le-linguiste a certainement une belle démonstration dans sa poche ...
Ah, j'oubliais... Notre prix Nobel de linguistique :
LAA : « Adam, You articulated that so well. (...) now English is the richest in vocabulary, and the most fluid language in the world. »
Je dois dire que l'association Adam<—>LAA est particulièrement irrésistible...
"Ceci est faux, bien sûr ! "
English has more words than any other language. It must have around 4 times the vocabulary of French. French has less words than German.
English not only has the most words, but it also has the world's fastest-growing vocabulary. Whereas English freely lets in all sorts of modern terms French, thanks to the old men smoking pipes who work in a library somewhere in Paris, is a lot more fussy about what words it let's into the language. As a result, is has a much smaller vocabulary than English.
Is it true that English has the most words of any language?
This question is practically impossible to answer, for the reasons set out in the answer to How many words are there in the English language? However, it seems quite probable that English has more words than most comparable world languages.
The reason for this is historical. English was originally a Germanic language, related to Dutch and German, and it shares much of its grammar and basic vocabulary with those languages. However, after the Norman Conquest in 1066 it was hugely influenced by Norman French, which became the language of the ruling class for a considerable period, and by Latin, which was the language of scholarship and of the Church.
Very large numbers of French and Latin words entered the language. Consequently, English has a much larger vocabulary than either the Germanic languages or the members of the Romance language family to which French belongs.
English is also very ready to accommodate foreign words, and as it has become an international language, it has absorbed vocabulary from a large number of other sources. This does, of course, assume that you ignore 'agglutinative' languages such as Finnish, in which words can be stuck together in long strings of indefinite length, and which therefore have an almost infinite number of 'words'.
www.askoxford.com
LAA,
I hate to disappoint you, I but I feel that I should point out that Adam simply copies and pastes most of what he posts on here — it's not his own words at all, and he freely admits it. He's an English Nationalist; everything he posts on here reflects that. He's been at it for years now on this forum, so most of us tend to just ignore him.
Benjamin,
I hate to disappoint you, but I'm afraid that LAA follows exactly the same dynamic as Adam... he just like to cite texts he has just found in some books, without having any experience or making a serious research on the themes he likes to discuss, instead of proposing something more of substance here, let alone his well-cited "narcisistic diva" style of writing.
He just wants to be "listened".... he is in a strong need of attention and admiration. So many of us tend to ignore him too....
Adam : « "Ceci est faux, bien sûr ! " ».
Ah ?! Tu comprends le français mainteanant ? C'est super : ça fait 5 mots de plus à ton vocabulaire — soit une croissance de 50 % pour aujourd'hui. Félicitations !
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