English's loss of Latin

Fab — tu as bien compris la mentalité qui existe en Angleterre. Si j'emploie beaucoup de mots d'origine française/latine en anglais, j'aurai l'air de loin «sophistiqué» que si j'emploie principalement les mots d'origine anglo-saxonne/germanique.

Par exemple, - compare ces deux phrases :

1. I will not begin the job until you stop arguing with me.
(en allemand: Ich beginne nicht den Job, bis Sie stoppen, mit mir zu argumentieren.)

2. I have no intention of commencing the activity until you cease to dispute with me.
(en français: J'ai pas l'intention de commencer l'activité jusqu'à ce que tu césses de te disputer avec moi.)

Alors, quoique ces deux phrases veulent dire généralement la même chose, la deuxième version a l'air de loin plus sophistiqué. C'est triste, n'est-ce pas ?

* quoique ces deux phrases veuillent ...

* j'aurai l'air de loin PLUS «sophistiqué» que ...

" Alors, quoique ces deux phrases veulent dire généralement la même chose, la deuxième version a l'air de loin plus sophistiqué ? "


Non, d'un point de vue Français absolument pas. La deuxième sonnera artificielle et moins naturelle, mais pas du tout plus "sophistiquée".
Pour nous le Français est la langue des banalités, des choses de la vie de tous les jours, des moments ou l'on est énervé, ou de la vulgarité aussi, et seulement de manière très occasionelle pour une petite minorité d'intellectuels celle du discours scientifique ou philosophique.

I'm kinda of in between the issue on whether native speakers of English feel closer to Germanic or Romance languages. In my situation I was raised in a multilingual household (English, Portuguese, and Spanish speaking). I was raised in the U.S and I have an American accent with my main language of course being English. I know that the "VERY BASIC" words in German and other Germanic languages are somewhat similar but I've always found it difficult to pronounce other Germanic words that don't look anything like English. My only problem with lumping English with other Germanic languages is if I looked at documents or I heard spoken Germanic languages (ie. German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norweigan, Icelandic, Afrikaans) I more than likely coudn't translate cold more than 10% of a written document or even less on spoken conversations in those languages. I have heard sound bytes of most of those languages in normal spoken speed and the most understandable if you could call it understandable was Dutch. I know the intelligability among the Germanic Languages other than English is much much higher in a continuum of German-Dutch-Afrikaans or Swedish-Danish-Norweigan. I think English needs to be in its own language category maybe titled "Hybrid German-Romance Languages". If anybody has any soundbyte examples of conversations in the Germanic languages at normal language levels that you think are intelligable to English, I would challenge you to post them.

Latin is still here...with us.

El autor del post de arriba no soy yo.

Benjamin, I don't really agree with your point. It's a simple fact that English words of French/Latin origin are often more FORMAL than the Germanic equivalents. 'Commence' is more formal than 'start' or 'begin', 'require' is more formal than 'need', 'acquire' and 'obtain' are more formal than 'get', 'assist' is more formal than 'help', etc etc etc.

Your (rather extreme!) sentences are examples of different registers of language. If you're going to the cinema with your friends, you say 'the film starts at 8pm'. If you say 'commence' they'll think you're being funny. However, if you're having a meeting with the CEO of your company, 'commence' would probably be the most appropriate word. Why on earth do you think this ability to switch between registers is 'triste'? Other languages can do it, too.

<<I have no intention of commencing the activity until you cease to dispute with me.>>

Have you ever, in your life, heard anyone talk like that, outside of parody or a performance of Shakespeare??? I don't know if I've ever heard anyone say the word 'cease' except in words like 'cease-fire'. (I sometimes see it written down, though)

I DO think that certain English-speaking people think that saying something in French makes them sound more intellectual or sophisticated. However, they're far more likely to use French phrases rather than English phrases of French origin: 'How are you?' - 'I am, en principe, absolutely fine' as I actually heard someone say once!

<<Jav Jav Jav, still fighting romance languages with nonsense comments ?>>

I took Jav's comment as a purely subjective opinion, as a native speaker of a Germanic language (Dutch?) rather than any objective statement of 'fact'. Personally, I don't agree with Jav or Ed - I tend to prefer the Romance-based words in English - but that doesn't make any of us wrong.

Candy — I do agree with you; anyone who speaks like the second example sounds like a pompous git. But people often seem to think that using French/Latin-derived words makes them sound sophisticated, for some reason. Like, when I went to the Modern Languages faculty open day at Cambridge earlier this year, a lot of people were quite literally speaking like that. My friends who attended the English day at Oxford reported a similar experience.

Pssibly, but I hardly think that people who want to study at Oxford or Cambridge are representative of the general population! It's far more likely that would-be students of these most august institutions are talking like that because they're trying to impress, or because they think that's how they 'supposed' to talk there. I seriously doubt they talk like that in their normal lives. Their friends would laugh themselves sick if they did. Also, when people have interviews, they do tend to err on the side of formality anyway.

Fredrik from Norway,
>> Exactly that attitude leads to English dominating international communication: We must not offend anybody, always speak English for the sake of communication.

I don't speak French, but I don't insist on peole deabting in English, because I think linguistical variety is very important! <<

Fredrik from Norway, what's the point of talking when one can not understand the other?Right, the is no point it's futile.

But that's not the case here ...

Here we have 2 people; one speaking English and (in this case) unable to speak French ... and the other person capable of speaking both English and French. Excuse, but I think it's rude to speak in French in a discussion like that.

And Frederik, your comment on " linguistical variety " is (although I know where you're comming from) is a bit strange.

Because as I've noticed people who are this rude usually speak either French, Spanish or Portuguese and let's be honest, these language are in no danger when it comes to linguistic variety.

In fact all 3 of these language have destroyed a great amount of earths linguistic variety.

Aldvs,
>>Jav Jav Jav, still fighting romance languages with nonsense comments ? <<

Why should I be "still fighting Romance languages" ? I merely gave my point of view, my opinion.

Just because you've embarked on a silly crusade against Germanic languages doesn't mean others will do the same or the opposite.

Candy,

I guess it different for an English speaker as they "meet" foreign loans much more regularly.

But when you read a word like "feline" don't you *think* "cat" ?

Jav: well, that's quite difficult to answer. I'm not sure if I think 'cat' exactly. 'Feline' has all sorts of connotations for me that 'cat' doesn't. 'Cat' just means 'small furry household pet'. 'Feline' gives me a mental image of 'cat-like behaviour'. Does that answer your question?

BTW, I'm not saying that I think the French/Latin words in English are in any way 'better' than the Germanic ones. But I do like having both.

<<Just because you've embarked on a silly crusade against Germanic languages doesn't mean others will do the same or the opposite.>>

You have a big imagination. I like Germanic languages and if I had time I would like to learn one like German, thing that I'm sure I won't hear from you about romance languages. Since you came here most of your comments are against romance languages or speakers. I could quote many comments made by you about it but I won't do it, that's a waste of time. It's quite clear that they bother you.

Aldvs,

>>You have a big imagination. I like Germanic languages and if I had time I would like to learn one like German, thing that I'm sure I won't hear from you about romance languages. Since you came here most of your comments are against romance languages or speakers. I could quote many comments made by you about it but I won't do it, that's a waste of time. It's quite clear that they bother you. <<

I have a wonderful imagination, I also have a great sense for reality.I used the latter to come to the crusade remark.

You claim that you do not hate Germanic languages, your argument for this is that you would like to learn German; but you have no time.
What's the above worth?! Nothing.

Apart from that, you know nothing about me.You claim that you could find many comments/posts of mine in which I supposably am "against" romance languages.You won't however do this because you consider it a waste of time.

Again you make an assumption based on a worthless argument.

I have only made like 10 -15 posts on this forum.Not much for you to check for "anti-romance" sentiments.This means you were talking out of your arse or you're very lazy.

Candy, you did answer my question thank you very much.I once heard English has a huge vocabulary with not only native but also many foreign words, I think this gives an English speaker a huge amount of ways yo express him or herself.Lucky English.