I wonder if the Latin and Germanic languages ever mated

Guest   Mon Sep 17, 2007 8:16 pm GMT
Many common words too come from germanic: like bouquin (book), garçon, hâte (haste), honner, halle, heurter (strike), harasser (exhaust), trop, blond, bois, bison, esturgeon, attacher, dériver (<Eng 'drive'), danser (dance), égarer, épargner, esquiver, guider (guide), lécher, épeler, épier, soigner, frapper...

Why is there no list for these words like for Spanish & Portuguese?...is the list too long?
Guest   Mon Sep 17, 2007 8:19 pm GMT
some Latin properties of French:
ALL the rest
Guest   Mon Sep 17, 2007 8:23 pm GMT
<<some Latin properties of French:
ALL the rest >>

Not really...Latin was/is a synthetic language, and French is analytic: Latin didn't make use of prepositions like 'de'/'a' in the way that French does...
LB   Mon Sep 17, 2007 9:05 pm GMT
<<<<some Latin properties of French:
ALL the rest >> >>

no.
"brisser," "changer," "piece", "bataille"...these are Celtic

so is the numbering system for 80, 90, 91 and so on...
quatre-vingts
quatre-vingt-dix
quatre-vingt-onze...built on a Celtic pattern
Guest   Tue Sep 18, 2007 10:39 am GMT
<<<Many common words too come from germanic: like bouquin (book), garçon, hâte (haste), honner, halle, heurter (strike), harasser (exhaust), trop, blond, bois, bison, esturgeon, attacher, dériver (<Eng 'drive'), danser (dance), égarer, épargner, esquiver, guider (guide), lécher, épeler, épier, soigner, frapper...

Why is there no list for these words like for Spanish & Portuguese?...is the list too long? >>>

Here a link containing some lists and explanations to the Germanic influence on French vocabulary

http://www.multilingual-matters.net/cils/006/0195/cils0060195.pdf
Druide   Tue Sep 18, 2007 10:46 am GMT
thank you for the link - I found there that only a very few words stem from Gaulish

nouns
alouette, lark,
braguette, fly (of trousers),
charrue, plough
carriole, cart,
carrosse, coach, l
otte, monkfish
limande, dab,
chêne, oak,
sapin, pine

verbs
brasser, brew,
briser, break,
changer, change

is this all???
Guest   Tue Sep 18, 2007 1:00 pm GMT
Arent the words ambassadeur, ambassade, pièce, petit, battre and riche all ultimately of Gaulish origin? Although some of them may have entered Latin via other langauges.
Guest   Tue Sep 18, 2007 1:54 pm GMT
<<some Latin properties of French:
ALL the rest >>

YES it is

Latin was/is a synthetic language, and French is analytic: Latin didn't make use of prepositions like 'de'/'a' in the way that French does...

like all other European languages and like all other Romances languages...so?
guest   Tue Sep 18, 2007 3:05 pm GMT
<<like all other European languages and like all other Romances languages...so? >>

no...
Languages like those in the Slavic and Baltic branch, and Greek, never experienced the hybridization events that Romance and some germanic languages like English (hybridization via Old Norse) did and are therefore still very synthetic...
guest   Tue Sep 18, 2007 3:27 pm GMT
<<thank you for the link - I found there that only a very few words stem from Gaulish
...
...
is this all??? >>

There are certainly more, yes, that made their way from Gaulish/Celtic into French or Gaulish/Celtic into Vulgar Latin then into French...

carrus (car, > "charge")
caballus (horse)
bulga > "bulge", "budget"
glennare > "glean"
lande > "lawn" in Eng...from either Celtic or Germanic or both
dune (Celtic and/or Germanic)
vassus, vassallus, vassallittus > "vassal", "valet", "varlet"
battuere > "batter", "[com]bat", etc...
...just to name a few
OïL   Tue Sep 18, 2007 7:27 pm GMT
- carrus > char > car, cart, to carry
- change > cambiare > to change
- battere > battre > to beat
- braies > breeches
- brasser > to brew
- dune > Düne > duine
- lande > landa > lawn
- briser > to break > brechen
- pin > pine
- etc.

Interestingly, nearly all of those Gaulic words were very early handed over to English, and many of them also to Italian, Spanish and even German.

This is one of the many reasons that let me assume that so-called Vulgar Latin emerged much earlier than generally alleged, featured an important Celtic (and possibly Germanic) input, was completely different from Latin, and was actually the real ancestor of modern romance languages.
Guest   Tue Sep 18, 2007 9:01 pm GMT
<<This is one of the many reasons that let me assume that so-called Vulgar Latin emerged much earlier than generally alleged, featured an important Celtic (and possibly Germanic) input, was completely different from Latin, and was actually the real ancestor of modern romance languages. >>

I wholeheartedly agree. The Romance languages, especially the Western group, share too many similarities with one another that were NOT inherited from Latin, but derive from another language altogether, an intermediate one.

Latin enthusiasts and those who fancy a notion that Modern Romance languages are "daughters of Latin", like to refer to this language as "Vulgar Latin" or "Oro-Latin" with [misleading] emphasis on the "-Latin" part...(as if to say "...see?...it's **-LATIN**...")--WRONG. It's proto-Romance, which is a hybrid of Latin, German[ic] and Celtic.

Please people, "Temet nosce"
Guest   Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:14 am GMT
"I wholeheartedly agree. The Romance languages, especially the Western group, share too many similarities with one another that were NOT inherited from Latin, but derive from another language altogether, an intermediate one. "

Isn't it much more probable that this assumed "other language" is simply the Germanic language brought in by all the immigrating peoples from Germania into Western Europe during the early middle ages?
Guest   Wed Sep 19, 2007 9:47 pm GMT
"I wholeheartedly agree. The Romance languages, especially the Western group, share too many similarities with one another that were NOT inherited from Latin, but derive from another language altogether, an intermediate one."

Absolutely, that would explain why languages like Portuguese and Spanish are so - relatively - different from each other despite being both territories under Roman rule and very close to each other.

If the original language was a Germanic language it would explain too why Portuguese is farther from Latin than Spanish, since the Visigoths already spoke a kind of romance language when they invaded Spain while the Suebians (who settled in Galicia and northern Portugal, where Portuguese developped) did not.
Adolfo   Thu Sep 20, 2007 9:52 am GMT
"Absolutely, that would explain why languages like Portuguese and Spanish are so - relatively - different from each other despite being both territories under Roman rule and very close to each other.

If the original language was a Germanic language it would explain too why Portuguese is farther from Latin than Spanish, since the Visigoths already spoke a kind of romance language when they invaded Spain while the Suebians (who settled in Galicia and northern Portugal, where Portuguese developped) did not."

The Iberian Peninsula is rather big for European standards and Portugal is far enough from where Spanish originated . Hence the differeces between they both, despite minor, can be explained withouth those exotic arguments. Occitan and French diverge to a greater degree than Spanish and Portuguese.
On the other hand the Suebi who arrived to Gallaecia (north-western corner of Spain) and northern Portugal where 5000 people. It is impossible that such low amount of people leaved a great impact on the language of a much bigger population. The differences between Spanish and Portuguese are dued to different linguistic substratums. While Spanish has a basque one, the substratum of Portuguese is Celtic. The name Gallaecia itself means little Gallia.