What makes French a Latin-Germanic mixed language

Some time ago there was a discussion about what makes French Latin and whether or not modern French (langue d´oil) can be considered as some kind of Germano-Latin mixed language (creole) built during Merovingian and Carolinian early middle ages by a close and long lasting contact between Romans and Germanic Francs in what is actually Northern and Eastern France and Belgium.

I now finally found some interesting literature about the actual scintific discussion solving the problem.

Today it seems to be widely accepted by the international scientific community that not only a small percetage (2%) of Germanic Franks settled in Neutria (today Northern France). It is said that a large Germanic settlement took place during about 5 centuries. The settlers were about as numerous as the autochthonous peoples, the Gallo-Romans of Northern and Eastern France, who were themselves partly of Germanic ancestry. The close contact between the numerous Germanic speaking settlers and the Latin speaking Gallo-Romans created what is today called French language.




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Ouest Mon Jun 18, 2007 11:48 am GMT
<<<Ouest : « greg, in your opinion, what was the main driving force for the "évolution de l'orolatin tardif" towards Old French? ».

Et moi je t'en pose une autre : à ton avis, quel facteur majeur détermine l'évolution de l'orolatin tardif vers l'ancien gascon archaïque ?>>>

Do you have some authentic text documents of late Orolatin and archaic Old Gascon for us to analyse the differences between both languages? I fear these both languages are pure inventions of people who make a lot of assumptions and get bogged down in details so long that at the end they believe they are facts.

Instead of loosing contact to reality by analysting languages born of imagination and wishful thinking, I refer again to Professor Cerquiglini

http://www.langue-fr.net/d/origines/histoire-1.htm

There you find the following explanation of Professor Cerquiglini for the change from Latin to Old French:

« ..... ce gallo-roman subit une pression très efficace (lexicale, phonétique et syntaxique) du superstrat germanique, au nord de la Gaule. Suffisamment forte, cette fois-ci, pour que l'on puisse distinguer deux langues dans ce gallo-roman : la proto-langue d'oïl au nord, la proto-langue d'oc au sud. Les raisons de cette influence décisive tiennent certes à la longue durée du contact ; de 486, arrivée des Francs, à 987 : Hugues Capet est le premier roi franc à ne plus parler que la langue romane ; un interprète lui est nécessaire quand on s'adresse à lui en langue germanique » « À partir du Ve siècle, en Gaule, l'enjeu social des idiomes prend une disposition des plus originales, figure exemplaire de ce qu'est, dans son fond, l' "influence" linguistique. Les envahisseurs adoptes certes la langue des envahis, comme idiome second puis premier, mais, grâce à leur position sociale, ils imposent leur parlure. Ce n'est pas le gallo-roman des Gallo-Romains qui s'imprègne d'éléments germaniques ; c'est le gallo-roman des seigneurs germaniques, donné à entendre et valorisé par eux, qui devient la norme, et chasse l'autre. Les déformations opérées par les Francs acquièrent un prestige social : elles émanent de la classe dirigeante, elles en sont la marque, voire la distinction. De ce bilinguisme socialement orienté procède par suite un gallo-roman nettement transformé par les Francs. Le français, si l'on ose dire, est du francé. » (6)>>>>>
ENGLISH
<<<....this Gallo-Roman underwent a very effective pressure (lexical, phonetic and syntactic) of the Germanic superstratum, in the north of Gaule. Sufficient strong, this time, so that one can distinguish two languages in this Gallo-Roman: the proto-language of oïl in north, the proto-language of oc in the south. The reasons of this decisive influence are certainly due to the long duration of the contact; from 486, arrived of Frank, to 987: Hugues Capet is the first frank king to speak only the Romance language anymore; an interpreter is necessary for him when one addresses to him in Germanic language” “Starting from Ve century, in Gaule, the social factors lead to a linguistic “influence”. The invaders adopt certainly the language of invaded, as second and later first language, but, thanks to their social position, they impose their way of speaking. It is not the gallo-roman of the Gallo-Romans which impregnates Germanic elements; it is the gallo-roman of the Germanic lords, spoken, developed and valorised by them, which becomes the standard, and drives out the other. The deformations operated by the Franks acquire a social prestige: they emanate from the leading class, they are the mark, even the distinction. This socially driven bilingualism proceeds consequently a gallo-novel clearly transformed by the Frank ones. French, if statement is dared, is francé.>>>>


This discribes a scenario that fully explains the Germanic features of the modern French: the prestige of the Germanic rulers led the Gallo-Romans to adopt their version of vernacular Latin. I would add that not only the rulers but also all the Germanic settlers and simple soldiers contributed to the creation of the new contact language. It is arbitray to call this process transformation, deformation, creolization, germanization, influence or even evolution - the facts remain the same...

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I now finally found some interesting article in:

Journal of Late Antiquity
Volume 1, Number 1, Spring 2008

Barbarians, Historians, and the Construction of National Identities1
by Ian Wood
University of Leeds, England

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_late_antiquity/v001/1.1.wood.html


Further actual scientific information is found in thge conference proceeding named:

Akkulturation

Probleme einer germanisch-romanischen Kultursynthese in Spätantike und frühem Mittelalter
Hrsg. v. Hägermann, Dieter / Haubrichs, Wolfgang / Jarnut, Jörg
Unter Mitarb. v. Giefers, Claudia
Dezember 2004. 24 x 17 cm. XVIII, 575 Seiten. 18 Abb. Leinen. Euro [D] 128,- / für USA, Kanada, Mexico US$ 189,-. *
ISBN 978-3-11-018009-1 Reihe: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde - Ergänzungsbände 41
Sprachen: Deutsch
Werktyp: Sammelband


Synopsis
For over ten years now, the interdisciplinary research group Nomen et Gens has been examining the mutual dependence of personal names and group memberships. The papers collected in this volume are the results of the 3rd international colloquium in March 2002, which was organised in conjunction with the German Historical Institute in Paris and the Paderborn Institute for Interdisciplinary Research into the Middle Ages and their Influence (IEMAN). The political unification of large parts of Central and Western Europe by the Franks and the multiplicity of further imperial formations led to the contact and mutual influencing of varied languages, institutions and traditions. In their papers, linguists, historians and archaeologists from different countries examine the sustained processes of synthesis for European culture in the late Classical Age and Early Middle Ages, which they characterise as being of long duration, multi-layered and diverse.

http://books.google.de/books?id=PzWuJKuTpnYC&pg=PA99&lpg=PA99&dq=Les-Francs+%22Pionniers+de+l+Europe+%22&source=web&ots=am2LQf2-0h&sig=fNZBy7ASnipOvbUfm0uEmag30GY&hl=de&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA4,M1

Today it seems to be widely accepted by the international scientific community that not only a small percetage (2%) of Germanic Franks settled in Neutria (today Northern France). It is said that a large Germanic settlement took place during about 5 centuries. The settlers were about as numerous as the autochthonous peoples, the Gallo-Romans of Northern and Eastern France, who were themselves partly of Germanic ancestry. The close contact between the numerous Germanic speaking settlers and the Latin speaking Gallo-Romans created what is today called French language.

Does a language that receives substratal features (in this case Frankish -> Early French) count as a creole? What of English and it's Celtic substratal influence?

What makes French a Latin Germanic mixture?Nothing. The substrate of French is Gaulish. It has Germanic superstrate.

What makes French a Latin Germanic mixture?Nothing. The substrate of French is Gaulish. It has Germanic superstrate.

<< a Latin-Germanic mixed language >>

-- Nonsense.
Languages can converge to some extent, but never really mix.

I don't know about the language but for sure the French people look more Germanized than from Latin origin. This is a thing I've noticed and confirmed for many years now. Does anyone her think the same?

I agree with you rui. I've thought that too. Maybe it's Gaulish characteristic that we confuse with Germanic?

Depends which French people you're talking about, sure they are plenty of gaulish/german origins, but also a large segment of the population that is african/arabic in origin.

Yeah, that really was a bigoted thing to say.

I thought that Gaul (France) was occupied by Celtic peoples, not Germanic. Therefore, modern-day French would be Latin-derived mainly but with Celtic sounds.

Your buying into a simplistic outdated nationalistic viewpoint. Celtic is merely a linguistic classification. There is no such thing as a Celtic or Germanic race. The two often get confused though.

We should not speculate about a French, Gaulish or Germanic race. History of French language is more interesting, whereby the ancestry of people surely plays a role as indicated by the term "mother tongue". But it is not the race but the language of the mother than matters.

French and classical Latin have a relatively small common nucleus. For example, only etymologists can find the common features in the vocabulary, and even these findings are contested by some authors (e.g. Mr. Yves Cortez). Grammar, Syntax, morphology and pronunciation are very different. For a French speaking pupil, learning Latin is like learning Greek or German, that means it is like learning a foreign language and not like learning a related language.

The explanation for this strange fact could be, that the Latin speaking populations in the Gauls (especially in the North and East) lost their Latin because they were submerged by a stream of Germanic speaking conquerors and settlers during the early middle ages. The fact that intense Germanic settlement took place is today well assured and not contested anymore by the scientific community.

"ouest", you claims are ridiculous. French distance from classical latin has nothing to see with the fact that it is not a real latin language like the others (or supossed to have endured a strong germanic mixing). It is the case of all the other romance languages. French gramatical structure has distrances with classical latin the same way Italian or Spanish has, for the simpls reason that those language derive from vulgar latin, and not from classical latin.

<<"ouest", you claims are ridiculous.>>

Given the historical circumstances affecting the development of V. Latin into Old French I wouldn't say that they are ridiculous at all but seem very logical.

In all respects, the very traits that set V. Latin apart from Classical Latin implicate germanic and celtic influences, because they are mirror images of features found in those languages, which appeared in Vulgar Latin and were not present in Classical Latin

Italy has also enndured strong Germanic impact (Rome´s population dropped down to below 30.000 people at the time of Lombard/Gothic/Frank migration), and Spain was successively invaded by the Goths, the Sarazens, the Franks and finally again by the Goths (Godos). So they can not be taken as references.