Why English will never be a Romance language

Terminator   Fri Feb 02, 2007 2:19 am GMT
This is the most stupid question I've ever seen on this forum.

How do you want English to become a romance language if it has different origins (even if there are influences from romance languages).

Maybe you should ask: Whay Spanish will never become an arabic language (it has arabic influences).


The answer at your question is: because the Japanese will never become an African language either.
robin   Wed Feb 21, 2007 5:51 pm GMT
as a linguist (ma and phd), i can tell you that english is not a romance language. romance languages come from latin (spoken by the romans, hence the term "romance") and english comes from german. yeah, a lot of the vocabulary is borrowed from romance languages (just as mandarin has a lot of english borrowings), but that doesn't change the evolution of the language. no matter what style your hair is (something that changes very easily, is on the surface -- like vocabualry) you grandfather is still your grandfather.
Lar   Wed Feb 21, 2007 6:49 pm GMT
English would have been able to become a Romanic language, it would have been even able to be replaced by French if Joan of Arc had not existed!
Because the kingdom of England had in this time the seizure on 2/3 of France, the king of England arose from a franque family, and French was the legal and official language of the court and the justice on this time...
The history would so have been totally different!
guest   Thu Feb 22, 2007 12:44 am GMT
<<English would have been able to become a Romanic language, it would have been even able to be replaced by French if Joan of Arc had not existed!>>

Don't you have that backwards???
If Joan of Arc had not existed, Frenchmen would be speaking English--a GERMANIC language!

English family descends from NORMAN lines--not French. They are not the same thing. Normans in the Norman capital spoke French...and practiced many french customs, but that's it...they were Danes.
guest   Thu Feb 22, 2007 12:47 am GMT
self correction: English 'royal' family descends from NORMAN lines--not French...
Libelle Reiher   Thu Feb 22, 2007 9:01 am GMT
<<Taking Latin classes serves two purposes:

1). to get you to become familiar with Latin vocabulary so that they can promulgate further entry of Latin based terminology into English, and

2). to cause you to assume the misunderstanding that you speak a Latin-derived language

that's about it.>>

Ha ha -- you have a point! I took it for five years and our teacher always went on about the fact that 60% of the English language is based on Latin. I think she left out the part that the vast majority of these words that make up the 60% are largely unused by most people; e.g: "pulchritude" -- true, if I had never taken Latin, I probably would not know that word in English without having to consult a dictionary, but not many people use that word. Even though, I loved learning Latin and fell in love with ancient Rome because of it. :)
Lar   Thu Feb 22, 2007 12:17 pm GMT
<< <<English would have been able to become a Romanic language, it would have been even able to be replaced by French if Joan of Arc had not existed!>>

Don't you have that backwards???
If Joan of Arc had not existed, Frenchmen would be speaking English--a GERMANIC language!

English family descends from NORMAN lines--not French. They are not the same thing. Normans in the Norman capital spoke French...and practiced many french customs, but that's it...they were Danes. >>

No, really, the french influence and also romanic would have been more important, because on this time, no forgot that the kingdom of France was the 3rd most populous country after China and India!
England (i don't know exactly the number on the middle age, but in 1750 you can compare 25 millions inhabitants in France and 7,5 in UK) was already in the norman-french nobility domination (and the king spoke norman-french, the first english king who speak the people's language as a native language was Henry IV (1399-1413)).
And the demographic and economic weight of France would have been sufficient to influence the (germanic) English people with the relations between 2 regions.
But France's culture, language and religion would have been profoundly changed. The France that we know today would not exist! For example, if the English had won the war, France probably would have been part of the British empire. And the country most likely would have been Protestant. It is also possible that France would no longer be a complete country. It could have been divided into two separet nations. There might be a small country of Burgundy and a larger country that would be France. To speculate even further, I believe that the balance of power in Europe down through the centuries would have been profoundly altered.
Lar   Thu Feb 22, 2007 12:18 pm GMT
<< <<English would have been able to become a Romanic language, it would have been even able to be replaced by French if Joan of Arc had not existed!>>

Don't you have that backwards???
If Joan of Arc had not existed, Frenchmen would be speaking English--a GERMANIC language!

English family descends from NORMAN lines--not French. They are not the same thing. Normans in the Norman capital spoke French...and practiced many french customs, but that's it...they were Danes. >>

No, really, the french influence and also romanic would have been more important, because on this time, no forgot that the kingdom of France was the 3rd most populous country after China and India!
England (i don't know exactly the number on the middle age, but in 1750 you can compare 25 millions inhabitants in France and 7,5 in UK) was already in the norman-french nobility domination (and the king spoke norman-french, the first english king who speak the people's language as a native language was Henry IV (1399-1413)).
And the demographic and economic weight of France would have been sufficient to influence the (germanic) English people with the relations between 2 regions.
But France's culture, language and religion would have been profoundly changed. The France that we know today would not exist! For example, if the English had won the war, France probably would have been part of the British empire. And the country most likely would have been Protestant. It is also possible that France would no longer be a complete country. It could have been divided into two separet nations. There might be a small country of Burgundy and a larger country that would be France. To speculate even further, I believe that the balance of power in Europe down through the centuries would have been profoundly altered.
Guest   Thu Feb 22, 2007 12:40 pm GMT
<<En somme, si Jeanne d'Arc a sauvé la France des Anglais, elle a également, par voie de conséquence et bien malgré elle, rendu un bien mauvais service à la langue française, car son intervention a sûrement contribué à assurer la pérennité de l'anglais.>>

I know a breton woman who give some ideas and hypotheses if Joan of Arc hadn't existed...I don't remember her name...
NERO   Fri Feb 23, 2007 8:22 am GMT
English is not an romantic tongue because it doesn't sound latin, it is a harsher language. the structure and word ordering in English is different.
No masculine or Feminine.
doesn't use reflexive verds like latin languages.
it is not a verb focused language
Guest   Mon Feb 26, 2007 9:08 pm GMT
<<No masculine or Feminine.
doesn't use reflexive verds like latin languages.
it is not a verb focused language >>

Although I agree with you 100%, that English is not Latin, I have seen many times on this forum where superficial/cosmetic qualities of Latin-descended languages are used to define Latin languages.

You cannot say that English is not Latinic because it doesn't have a masculine & feminine gender assignment for nouns. Although most Latin-derived languages do possess this feature, this feature is completely superficial--it is not specific to them nor is it a determinant for one of them. Same is true with reflexive verbs, etc. Many other languages, even those closely related to English, have these same features. In fact, English once did, but not because of anything having to do with Latin.

To be Latinic (Romanic, etc) a language must show a continuum from Latin itself. End of story.