Why English will never be a Romance language

Cro Magnon   Wed Dec 20, 2006 3:57 pm GMT
As an English-speaker, it's easy to see the differences between English and other languages. I'm sure the Dutch & Germans can tell the difference between their two languages, even though it looks the same to me.

English certainly doesn't seem like a Romance language to me, even if it DOES borrow a lot of words.
JGreco   Wed Dec 20, 2006 5:45 pm GMT
I don't think many non native English speakers are getting the point. Most if not all English speakers realize the closest language group to English is of course the Germanic languages. But, the questioning is in the "intelligability" of a language to other Germanic languages which I keep on repeating and repeating Ad nauseum in other similar forums on this site. The Core Germanic languages share a lot more in common especially in intelligability with each other than with English. Your average English speaker who does not speak a lick of German or other germanic languages could not communicate with another monolingual speaker. Anecdotally, this reigns true in the part of the United States were I live. Last year when I worked a waiting job in Destin, Florida a German couple came into the resturaunt who did not speak any English. They tried to communicate to me in German what they needed. Since German is not my foree language wise (though I do speak Portuguese, Spanish, can read Italian, French, and Catalan) of course I could only understand maybe 15% of what they were trying to get across. They then began to get upset that I could not understand them and none of the other monolingual English wanted to take their order. Luckily there was a Russian girl who spoke a little German and she took their order.

>>I have to Digress for a second<<

Sometimes I get upset at many Europeans who complain that Americans do not speak any other languages because they do not travel or they do not know anything about Europe or other basic knowledge of Germanic languages. First of all flying is expensive and the cheapest flights internationally are to Latin America or the Caribbean so of course we travel their more often, second, You simply live in Europe and can drive or take the train to other locations in Europe so of course it is easier for you to learn the language, Finally, Europeans make a lot more money than Americans (Western Europeans at least) and you have more ascentives to go on holiday for a bit more time than Americans because of the way your labor and work structure works, their are no contracts in the United States for most people unless your going into the military. So in this way maybe this is why Americans are not as culturally inclined as Europeans.

as a side note:

I have been all over Europe many times only because it is part of my degree and I have rich relatives. The Majority of americans do not have that opportunity.
Benjamin   Wed Dec 20, 2006 8:34 pm GMT
« Finally, Europeans make a lot more money than Americans (Western Europeans at least) »

Really? According to the International Monetary Fund, her is the GDP per capita in purchasing power parity in US dollars for the United States and major Western European countries:

$41,399 — United States
$30,862 — Netherlands
$30,579 — Germany
$30,436 — Britain
$29,926 — Sweden
$29,187 — France
$28,534 — Italy
$26,320 — Spain
Ayazid   Wed Dec 20, 2006 8:58 pm GMT
This is a little bit sily and useless thread. English is obviously a peculiar Germanic language with strong Romance (especially French) influence in vocabulary, that´s all. Just like Maltese is a Semitic language with strong Italian/English influence and modern Farsi (Persian) an Indo-Iranian language with Arabic influence and I presume that nobody has ever questioned this fact. HOWEVER, the Romance loan words in english shouldn´t (and can´t) be underestimated for being (allegedly) to intelectual, snobbish and rarely used. I would like to ask all native (and other) speakers of English here who underestimate this influence to explain me why they completely don´t avoid use of such words and don´t use their earthy, simple and downright equivalents then? I ama afraid the level of this forum is still not on the above mentioned 10th grade so it´s not necessary at all. Forget words like language, basic, use, change, simple, able, mountain, forest, family, question, explain, people, search, rest, reason, sound, face etc. ! Why don´t you try to avoid their use completely hum ?? Well, at least you can say example tongue instead of language or folk instead of people. It´s so easy, it isn ´t?

Actually, English of today is unimaginable without Romance words them. Basic vocabulary, morphology and phonology is Germanic, ok and ... ?

English is a Germanic language which has been changed by its isolated evolution in the British isles (+ the mentioned Romance influence) to the point that it´s no more intelligible with its "cousins" as Frisian, German, Dutch or Danish even in the simplest things. Just compare the mutual intelligibility of English and Frisian or Dutch, to that of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese within the family of Romance languages, or that of slavic Czech, Polish and even more distant ones like Russian or Serbian. Even French which is not intelligible to speakers of other Romance languages in its spoken form, can be quite well understandable when written. Could be English understood by a Frisian or Dutchman both in spoken or written form? I don´t think so :-))))))))))
JGreco   Thu Dec 21, 2006 2:01 am GMT
« Finally, Europeans make a lot more money than Americans (Western Europeans at least) »

Really? According to the International Monetary Fund, her is the GDP per capita in purchasing power parity in US dollars for the United States and major Western European countries:

$41,399 — United States
$30,862 — Netherlands
$30,579 — Germany
$30,436 — Britain
$29,926 — Sweden
$29,187 — France
$28,534 — Italy
$26,320 — Spain



"I wonder if this accounts for the fact that th "Euro" is valued way higer than the dollar. We may make more but you in Europe are offered many more services and incentives that we in The United States do not have."




"I totally agree with you Ayazid I am glad you said that."
*CarloS*   Thu Dec 21, 2006 10:38 am GMT
It's been ages since I last posted something in here!

I'm not sure if English will ever become a Latin Language, primarily because it's grammar is very different from that of Latin Languages.

But, I have noticed that where I live (the US... I left Peru like three months ago...), English keeps borrowing words from Spanish, French and Latin itself! Sometimes it also borrows words from Italian (check your food labels). It either adds the new words to the English vocabulary (mostly the case of French and Italian) or it transforms them to create new words (this is the case of Spanish and Latin).
Guest   Thu Dec 21, 2006 6:03 pm GMT
English is not the only Germanic language to borrow Romance words. Consider for example the German words: Heute, Mauer, Spiegel, Reste (remainder), schreiben, kaput, Nation, Information, Karte, reparieren, mischen...they're all borrowed.

One could even make the argument that GERMAN is more influenced by Latin than English--and it is. German grammar is the way it is today because of Latin: Nominative/Accusative/Dative/Genitive; SOV word order, etc...these features survive in German (even though they also existed in old germanic) because of the influence of Latin on the language.

PLUS, German contains almost as many borrowed Romance & Latin based words as English--the only difference is that they are masked by a more "germanic" (at least what we might think of as "germanic") spelling.

English spelling is really Old-Middle French spelling...much harder to belie on a written page. English pronounciation, though, is VERY germanic--No concealing it there : )
emilio   Thu Dec 21, 2006 6:50 pm GMT
"English is not the only Germanic language to borrow Romance words. Consider for example the German words: Heute, Mauer, Spiegel, Reste (remainder), schreiben, kaput, Nation, Information, Karte, reparieren, mischen...they're all borrowed."

Yes, but you forgot to list the other germanic languages that borrowed words like nation, information, repair, rest, ....

"One could even make the argument that GERMAN is more influenced by Latin than English--and it is."

Hey, I learned something completely NEW, LOL!!! Maybe you can prove your statement?! But propably not since it's utterly nonsense.

"German grammar is the way it is today because of Latin"

Really? You won't believe it, but German and Latin do have the same ancestor (indo-european) and thus preserved a quite deal of those ancient grammatical features! And English...?

"PLUS, German contains almost as many borrowed Romance & Latin based words as English"

Now you're contradicting yourself, pal. Look at what you wrote before:

"One could even make the argument that GERMAN is more influenced by Latin than English--and it is."

LOL!

"English pronounciation, though, is VERY germanic"

Well, compared to German and Dutch, I would say no, not at all...

"No concealing it there"

...conceal...nice word ;-)
Guest   Thu Dec 21, 2006 7:35 pm GMT
The other Guest is right.

The influence of Latin on German is more substantial than that on English. English is only impacted in it's vocabulary (though greatly), whereas German is impacted both in vocabulary (and yes, so are other Germanic languages), but also in it's grammar--which English is not.

Even though both German and Latin ARE descended from Indo-European, German is more unique in it's position in the Germanic family due to it's rather archaic grammar. For instance, Dutch and the modern Scandinavian languages have a grammar almost as simple as English--no case distinctions, no noun declensions, few adjective inflections, and little verb conjugation (if any), so in this sense the Guest is correct. The reason why these remain in German is due to church Latin influence on German during the Middle Ages.

Kopf is another good Germano-Latin word too ; )
Adam   Thu Dec 21, 2006 7:39 pm GMT
"English will never be a Romance langauge because NO ONE WANTS TO MAKE LOVE IN ENGLISH. Not voluntarily anyway. "

What if you're an Englishman? If an Englishman is shagging his bird he isn't gonna try and remember how to speak in Italian or French whilst he's doing it.
Adam   Thu Dec 21, 2006 7:44 pm GMT
"That is why Spanish speaking countries have higher birth rates than English speaking countries."


Then how do you explain that Spain's birth rate is 10.06 births/1,000 population (2006 est.) whereas Britain's birth rate is 10.71 births/1,000 population (2006 est.) and America's birth rate is a huge 14.14 births/1,000 population (2006 est.)?

ciaworldfactbook.com
Adam   Thu Dec 21, 2006 7:51 pm GMT
"Finally, Europeans make a lot more money than Americans (Western Europeans at least) » "
===========================



Based on World Bank Development Indicators published in July 2006, here are the 10 richest countries in the world. GNP per capita for each country is shown in US dollars.

Ten Richest Countries (based on 2004 GNP per capita in US$)

Luxembourg ... $56,380
Norway ... $51,810
Switzerland ... $49,600
United States ... $41,440
Denmark ... $40,750
Iceland ... $37,920
Japan ... $37,050
Sweden ... $35,840
Ireland ... $34,310
Britain ... $33,630

http://internationaltrade.suite101.com
emilio   Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:23 pm GMT
Apart from the amount of latin-derived vocabulary of the English language and the simplifying of its grammar, the greatest difference between English and the other germanic languages is the high occurence of semantic changes (or meaning drift) of germanic words in English.

Examples:
knight - used to mean "boy, youth, servant" (like German Knecht)
will (verb; O.E. willan) - used to mean "to wish, desire, want" (Ger. wollen)
flesh - used to mean "meat" (Ger. fleisch)
to starve - used to mean "to die" (Ger. sterben)
like (O.E. gelic) - used to mean "same" (Ger. gleich)
fare (O.E. faran) - used to mean "to journey" (Ger. fahren)
hound (rarely used) - means "dog" (Ger. hund)
wife - used to mean "woman" (Ger. weib)
and thousands more...

By the way, the word "write" is cognate with German "ritzen" - the latter prevailed the meaning of "scratching", whereas English also uses the Latin words "escrever, scribe, scribble, describe" which are related to German "schreiben".
emilio   Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:36 pm GMT
Dear Guest

"The other Guest is right."

Somehow I believe that YOU are the other guest! So, you agree with yourself...that's nice!

"Even though both German and Latin ARE descended from Indo-European, German is more unique in it's position in the Germanic family due to it's rather archaic grammar"

Yes, that's what I wanted to say. Together with Icelandic, German retained a lot of archaic grammatical features which the other germanic languages lost, especially English.

"Kopf is another good Germano-Latin word too ; )"

Yes, and that is related to English "cup", see! While "head" is related to German "haupt" meaning "head" (from P.Gmc. *khaubuthan) ;-)
Guest   Fri Dec 22, 2006 1:50 am GMT
Just give English a chance and a couple of centuries and then we'll see...