Saturday, March 05, 2005, 13:29 GMT
" If you knew it, you would understand Italians better, because it is a language in the middle "
In south France less than 10% of the population "knew" some occitan. most of those 10% know only some words and are unable to speak it, anyway they almost never have the occasion to do it.
By the way, occitan is not really intermediary with french and Italian. It is part of the same sub-group than french (western romance languages), while italian is part of the eastern romance languages. the closest language to occitan is catalan (catalan is considered to be derived from an occitan dialect)
"Although the French language has a Latin basis I don't think that it's lexicon is as high as 95% Latin. Wikipedia claims that perhaps as much as 15% of the vocabulary of French is of Germanic origin, higher than any other Romance language"
I don't deny that there is some influence of germanic in french. That doesn't mean that we should be excluded from the latin group.
Every latin language has non-latin influence, the arabic influence in spanish and portuguese language is huge, also a germanic influence can be seen in those langauges - so we should exclude them to the latin group!
The slavic influence in romanian is much more important than germanic in french (40% of romanian vocabulary from slavic) - So we should exclude them from the latin group too.
Italian, expecially the northern dialects have huge germanic and celtic influences - so let's exclude northe italians from the latin group !?...
Southern italian dialects have influences from greek, arab and norse... So let's exclude those regions from latin group !...
So what is the rest ? Rome region only ? Yes that were latin comes from... think about it.
I think the reason why some people want to exclude french from latin group is not due to rational linguistical and cultural reasons but just racists ones.
Because France is a country that is partly situated in northern Europe, people think that we should be like other north europeans. people confuse geography and culture!
"second point, very central, is that linguistic facts must be kept separate from anthropological facts. People can change languages. For example, the Bulgarians were originally a Hunnic (North Turkic) people from Central Asia. However, they gave up their native language within a few generations and adopted the language of their Slavic subjects. "
Your mistake is that you seem to think human groups as something almost "racial". When you seem to think that french were not "anthropoligically" latin but seem to say that we were "genetically" german... you confuse everything! being "latin", like being "germanic" or being "turkic" is not a race, but is a cultural-linguistic group. Being germanic doesn't mean being of north european type (even if most of germanic people are), and being latin is not either being necessary of "mediterranean type".
It is true that some people who were of germanic culture came into france long time ago, but, as long as they left their culture and language outside and adopted gallo-roman culture they became latin. theywere not germanic anymore. The same with north africans who settled in spain, their decendants are not arabs anymore because they don't speak arabic nor have arab culture but an arab culture. By the way, being "arab" has nothing to do with a race, but with having an arabic culture. north africans have not always been arab, but because the people from arabia brought them arab language and culture they became arabized and are now arabs...
In south France less than 10% of the population "knew" some occitan. most of those 10% know only some words and are unable to speak it, anyway they almost never have the occasion to do it.
By the way, occitan is not really intermediary with french and Italian. It is part of the same sub-group than french (western romance languages), while italian is part of the eastern romance languages. the closest language to occitan is catalan (catalan is considered to be derived from an occitan dialect)
"Although the French language has a Latin basis I don't think that it's lexicon is as high as 95% Latin. Wikipedia claims that perhaps as much as 15% of the vocabulary of French is of Germanic origin, higher than any other Romance language"
I don't deny that there is some influence of germanic in french. That doesn't mean that we should be excluded from the latin group.
Every latin language has non-latin influence, the arabic influence in spanish and portuguese language is huge, also a germanic influence can be seen in those langauges - so we should exclude them to the latin group!
The slavic influence in romanian is much more important than germanic in french (40% of romanian vocabulary from slavic) - So we should exclude them from the latin group too.
Italian, expecially the northern dialects have huge germanic and celtic influences - so let's exclude northe italians from the latin group !?...
Southern italian dialects have influences from greek, arab and norse... So let's exclude those regions from latin group !...
So what is the rest ? Rome region only ? Yes that were latin comes from... think about it.
I think the reason why some people want to exclude french from latin group is not due to rational linguistical and cultural reasons but just racists ones.
Because France is a country that is partly situated in northern Europe, people think that we should be like other north europeans. people confuse geography and culture!
"second point, very central, is that linguistic facts must be kept separate from anthropological facts. People can change languages. For example, the Bulgarians were originally a Hunnic (North Turkic) people from Central Asia. However, they gave up their native language within a few generations and adopted the language of their Slavic subjects. "
Your mistake is that you seem to think human groups as something almost "racial". When you seem to think that french were not "anthropoligically" latin but seem to say that we were "genetically" german... you confuse everything! being "latin", like being "germanic" or being "turkic" is not a race, but is a cultural-linguistic group. Being germanic doesn't mean being of north european type (even if most of germanic people are), and being latin is not either being necessary of "mediterranean type".
It is true that some people who were of germanic culture came into france long time ago, but, as long as they left their culture and language outside and adopted gallo-roman culture they became latin. theywere not germanic anymore. The same with north africans who settled in spain, their decendants are not arabs anymore because they don't speak arabic nor have arab culture but an arab culture. By the way, being "arab" has nothing to do with a race, but with having an arabic culture. north africans have not always been arab, but because the people from arabia brought them arab language and culture they became arabized and are now arabs...