I wonder if the Latin and Germanic languages ever mated

Viri Amaoro   Sun Mar 26, 2006 2:41 am GMT
Does anybody know if an example exists of any contemporary or historical form of a Latin/Germanic hybrid? A sort of pidgin, perhaps?...
Viri Amaoro   Sun Mar 26, 2006 2:43 am GMT
I'm not quite sure about the structure of the sentence above. It doesn't look quite right. Can any of you wonderfull chaps give me a hand?...
Guest   Sun Mar 26, 2006 6:57 am GMT
GUERRA sp (werra, germanic meaning "bout or fight")

Some interesting things, to consider.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spanish_words_of_Germanic_origin
Viri Amaoro   Sun Mar 26, 2006 7:19 pm GMT
It just an idea that I had, after remembering an arcticle I had read about an extinct Russian/Norwegian pidgin (not a full language, a pidgin) that ocurred in the high Artic, somewhere during the XIX century, when Norwegians and Russians came into contact there. I don't recall the name of this pidgin, though.
suomalainen   Mon Mar 27, 2006 12:46 pm GMT
The name of this pidgin that Norwegians and Russians used is in Norwegian 'russenorsk' ("Russian Norwegian"). It contained anyway enough words so the merchants, fishermen and seal hunters could communicate.
greg   Mon Mar 27, 2006 7:55 pm GMT
Raté ! Encore...
Trawick   Tue Mar 28, 2006 3:13 pm GMT
Most Western European languages have a vocabulary which is a mixture of Germanic and Romantic sources. Whether a lanuage is Germanic or Romantic basically refers more to its inherent structure (i.e. grammar, syntax, etc.) than the actual word percentages.

That's why if you tried to classify English solely on its vocab, you could probably consider it a Germanic-Romantic hybrid language. But its structure is firmly Germanic, which is why that's still how its classified.
latin anglo-saxon   Thu Oct 19, 2006 6:07 pm GMT
Yes there is such a language and it´s name is english.
A hydrid between latin and a germanic language.
a.p.a.m.   Thu Oct 19, 2006 6:21 pm GMT
Latin and Germanic are derived from a common ancestor called "Indo-European". I agree with the previous post. If there is such a language where Latin and Germanic mated, it's certainly English.
greg   Thu Oct 19, 2006 8:13 pm GMT
a.p.a.m. « Latin and Germanic are derived from a common ancestor called "Indo-European". I agree with the previous post. If there is such a language where Latin and Germanic mated, it's certainly English. »

Certainement pas ! L'anglais moderne est le résultat d'une influence française à la fois francisante et latinisante sur un idiome totalement germanique à l'origine.

Le français — ainsi que les langues d'Oïl septentrionales et orientales (bien davantage que l'anglais) — témoigne de temps et de lieux où germanophonie et latinophonie ont coexisté.

L'anglais n'est jamais que le produit de la cohabitation d'une excroissance germanophone avec une excroissance latinophone. On trouve les originaux (y compris l'interaction romano-germanique) en Europe continentale.
Honni soit qui mal y pens   Tue Oct 24, 2006 11:08 pm GMT
Hi everybody,

French language is a Romance language which has the most important germanic influence. It come from Frank, a germanic people who has invaded Gaul in the first centuries (Franks have given the France word).

For instance, among a lot of example, french language is the only Romance
language which do not use a Latin origin for colours : blanc (white), bleu (blue), gris (grey), brun (brown), all have a Germanic origin.

In addition a part not inconsiderable of people in France have not a language with a Latin origin : Bretons in West, Basques in South-West, Flemish in North and Alsatians in East of France.

By the way roughly 50% of english word have been borrowed from french.

Honni soit qui mal y pense
Adolfo   Tue Aug 21, 2007 11:05 am GMT
"french language is the only Romance
language which do not use a Latin origin for colours : blanc (white), bleu (blue), gris (grey), brun (brown), all have a Germanic origin.
"

Italian has the same words for these colours excepting brown . I wonder what is the big germanic influence the French language that make it a different romance language. Is it that weir pronunciation? Perhaps the explaination is a celtic substratum since Portuguese also has it and its pronunciation is quite strange too for a romance language . I'm not sure but Portuguese has the guttural -r too.
Guest   Tue Aug 21, 2007 4:13 pm GMT
Blanc and Gris, do come from Latin, (i.e. Blanco y Gris in Spanish) besides those two the rest are germanized.
OïL   Tue Aug 21, 2007 10:04 pm GMT
'Blanc' (et 'blanco') est aussi d'origine germanique. En latin c'était 'albus'.

"Does anybody know if an example exists of any contemporary or historical form of a Latin/Germanic hybrid?"

L'hybride le plus poussé est le chiac, un mixte français+anglais parlé au Nouveau-Brunswick. Il intègre même des traits germaniques très nets dans le traitement à l'anglaise des particules verbales, mais la structure syntaxique d'ensemble reste française.

Il y a encore des dialectes mixtes à Bruxelles, mais le choix des pronoms, articles et construction des temps fait qu'ils tombent soit côté français, soit côté néerlandais. C'est inévitable. Application de la théorie des dominos: si le mot 'de' est utilisé comme préposition (comme en français), les conséquences en cascade donnent au final une syntaxe française. S'il sert d'article défini non neutre (comme en flamand), on retombe sur une structure germanique.

En fait, il a existé des centaines de langages intermédiaires il y a longtemps, lors de la différenciation de l'ancien indo-européen. Mais ces moyens termes ont tous été éliminés. Cas des langues celtiques, assez proches du latin au point de vue grammaire mais germano-compatibles dans le vocabulaire et la phonétique: le résultat est que leur domaine, autrefois immense, a été presque totalement annexé par les langues germaniques ou romanes.

Dans l'arborescence des langues indo-européennes, quantité de variantes ont disparu, elles se sont principalement cristallisées sur trois familles gagnantes —latine, germanique, slave—, bien typées, suffisamment typées pour ne pas être miscibles.
Guest   Wed Aug 22, 2007 12:35 am GMT
Spanish also has a word for the Latin "albus", it's "Alba", though it doesn't literally mean White.