English and romance languages extremely similar?

" When we say that French has germanic structural/syntactical elements we mean mainly compound verbal tenses, many of which are also found in the other romance languages "


composed verbal tenses are present in French, Spanish, Italian, I think Portuguese, and probably Romanian and the other minoritary romance languages also.

Spanish, Italian use a lot "passé composé" as we do in french. The way we construct our verbial form of "passé composé" in french is the same as in Spanish and Italian.

J'ai mangé - (Io) Ho mangiato - (yo) Hé comido
Tu as fini - (Tu) ai finito - (tu) has terminado
etc.

Italian or Spanish use the same other compsed verbs than french, in the same conditions and meanings:

- "plus-que-parfait":
j'avais chanté - (io) avevo cantato - (yo) habia cantado

- "passé antérieur":
j'eus chanté - (io) ebbi cantato - (yo) hube dormido

A peine il fut sorti...
Appena il fu uscito...
En cuanto el hubo salido...

- "futur anterieur":
tu auras chanté - (tu) avrai cantato - (yo) habras cantado

- "subjonctif passé"

- "subjonctif plus-que-parfait"

etc...


Are all these french consctructions so germanic?

"Hoe heet jouw man?"-Not transparent for English speakers to read and understand.
It sounds approximately like "Who hate youah/your man?" in a dialect of southern American English.
It means "What is your husband called?"

It may sound somewhat like English sometimes, but beware of Dutch!

<<composed verbal tenses are present in French, Spanish, Italian, I think Portuguese, and probably Romanian and the other minoritary romance languages also. >>

French, Italian and Spanish Yes. And they all have germanic as their origin.

<<Spanish, Italian use a lot "passé composé" as we do in french. The way we construct our verbial form of "passé composé" in french is the same as in Spanish and Italian.
>>

Italian and French are analog with German, Dutch and older forms of English, where both the verb 'be' (change of condition/motion) and 'have' are employed.

Spanish is like Modern English in that only 'haber' is used.

Still, they are all germanic structures.

<<"Hoe heet jouw man?">>

Well, it may sound like "Who hate(s) your man" but we readily realize that "heet" is "hight" ("named"/"called") and we can quickly figure it out :)

>> Well, it may sound like "Who hate(s) your man" but we readily realize that "heet" is "hight" ("named"/"called") and we can quickly figure it out :) <<

Sorry, but I don't readily realize that.

<<Sorry, but I don't readily realize that. >>

You should read more and become more familiar with your language

I wonder if Uriel would be able to figure it out from listening in context. Of course, if the answer was "Maarten" then, she'd probably guess what was being asked.

You know, maybe I missed it, but why would we figure "heet" for "called" unless we already knew a Germanic language other than English. I know that it's easy enough for people to make the connection from German "Er heisst Martin/He is called Martin" or Norwegian "Han heter Martin." Let's see, there is a word "hedder" in Danish, probably something in Icelandic with "h--t/or d" that would give the clue, but what's the cognate in English? It's probably obvious, but I can't think of it.

>> You know, maybe I missed it, but why would we figure "heet" for "called" unless we already knew a Germanic language other than English. I know that it's easy enough for people to make the connection from German "Er heisst Martin/He is called Martin" or Norwegian "Han heter Martin." Let's see, there is a word "hedder" in Danish, probably something in Icelandic with "h--t/or d" that would give the clue, but what's the cognate in English? It's probably obvious, but I can't think of it. <<

It's heitir in Icelandic As in "Hvað heitir þú". In Old Norse it was probably *"Hwat heitiR þu" or something like that. The English cognate is "hight", but it is extremely archaic. Comes from Old English "hātan". Makes sense because it's cognate with German "heissen", and Old English ā corresponds to High German "ei". Other examples: "stān" (stone) vs. Stein, etc.

However, I don't think the average (modern) English speaker would make a connection between "heet" and "hight". For one thing, recognizing cognates or derivatives with vowel or consonant changes can be quite difficult, especially if you don't know the rules that govern them, and two, we no longer use the "hight" construction in English for a long time now, as it has been completely replaced by the "What is your name?" or "What are you called?", etc. constructions.

Yeah, the last time we used "hight" for "called" was in, I don't know, the middle ages or so? That's what I mean about germanic words often being cognates of English words, but not the English words we were particularly looking for!

But it's odd that Dutch uses the "how are you called" type of construction for "what's your name" -- that seems like a very romance construction to me, similar to Sp. "Como se llama?" Ironic....

>> But it's odd that Dutch uses the "how are you called" type of construction for "what's your name" -- that seems like a very romance construction to me, similar to Sp. "Como se llama?" Ironic.... <<

No it's not odd. I think English is probably of the only Germanic languages that no longer uses that construction. e.g. Old Norse: *"Hwat heitiR þu?" = "What hightest thou?"

romance speaker:
<<word order almost always inverse>>

The only thing that's inverse is the relationship between adjectives and nouns - everything else is pretty much the same.

<<not at all the same tenses>>

One of the more striking similarities is that periphrastic verb constructions in English and romance languages (active and passive voice) are identical.

i.e: have + past participle, to be + past participle.

"The English cognate is "hight", but it is extremely archaic. Comes from Old English "hātan". Makes sense because it's cognate with German "heissen", and Old English ā corresponds to High German "ei". Other examples: "stān" (stone) vs. Stein, etc."

Thank-you, re. I didn't know that word. Quite interesting posts from you.

A good word to add to your vocabulary if you want to confuse people.

What hight you?
I hight Jim.
He hights Jim.
The first President highted Washington.