English a language heavily influenced by french

LAA   Mon Aug 07, 2006 7:44 am GMT
<<I think I'm actually talking about the one we use today.... the Caesarian one.>>

The Caesarian calerndar has since been modified, due to certain flaws. We use the Gregorian calendar now.


<<I'm actually surprised by your comment about Sander and frankfully I have to agree to some extent. Aren't you sure he's referring to the fact that the core grammar structure and core vocab is still Germanic based in the English language? >>

Why are you suprised? The guy thinks he's infallible. And I gave him plenty of opportunity to allow for him to specify that English is not very Latinized in terms of "the core grammar, structure, and core vocabulary". He still wishes to insist that English is no more closely related to French than it is to Russian or Greek.
romano   Mon Aug 07, 2006 10:20 pm GMT
by the way how do you say you(in a plural sense?)
like vous or vosotros i've been thinking about it
english really lacks that subjective form untill now i realize that
Guest   Tue Aug 08, 2006 10:34 am GMT
<Why are you suprised? The guy thinks he's infallible. And I gave him plenty of opportunity to allow for him to specify that English is not very Latinized in terms of "the core grammar, structure, and core vocabulary". He still wishes to insist that English is no more closely related to French than it is to Russian or Greek.>

Indeed Sander can be very 'protective' of the so call Germanic language of English. Something I myself found some of his opinions abit 'harsh' though his opinions should be respected.
fab   Tue Aug 08, 2006 2:47 pm GMT
Lets assume that we have a hybrid of the Germanic and Latin language groups - ENGLISH

ENG-television
FRE-television
SPA-television (ALSO IN SPANISH WOULD IT BE BORROWED)


" voy a tener un examen de ingles
je vais avoir un examen d'anglais
im goig to having an english exam

English structure is reverse when comparing to french and spanish
but the vocabulary is similar to latin languages "



Hmmm... "I", "am", "to", "...ing", "english"
these words are not very latin...
But I agree, in english, the prononciation and the structural grammar are completly different, even when the words are latinates.



" its interresting the pronounciation of french too is the most similar to english "

You may not knowing French. For us the prononciation of english is an atrocity. That so different, almsot all letters are prononced a different way. I even find German prononciation to be closer tah the english one.

Let's look at the alphabet, the French and spanish prononciation of the letters are the same for : A, B, C, D, F, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, S, T, V

While between french and English it is similar only for : F, L, M, N, O and S
All the other letters are pronounced completly differently.




" isn't easier for a french to learn english than for a spanish to learn english? "

I can't answere since I'm not a spanish speaker. All that I can say is that English is very difficult to learn for french people, especially for the basis of the everyday language. English prononciation was a school torture for us. Most English speakers complain about the poor level of our english, even after having being studying it for 7 years at school (obligation).
I personally don't see in what sense knowing french could help for speaking english. As I said in a previous topic; the huge majority of the french-derived words that exists in English also exist in Spanish.
fab   Tue Aug 08, 2006 2:53 pm GMT
" Lets assume that we have a hybrid of the Germanic and Latin language groups - ENGLISH

ENG-television
FRE-television
SPA-television (ALSO IN SPANISH WOULD IT BE BORROWED) "



As all people here I of course don't consider English as an hibrid. From a Romance point of view, English seems very germanic, since all the basis is very germanic and most of latinates are heavilly germanized (in the spealling or prononciation).

The exemple of "television" has no sence, since this word is a neologisme maybe not much older than 70 years. this was a name made of words of greek and latin origins (like a lot of technical neologisms like telephone, etc...). In most languages it is said the same way, even the ones that have nothing to see with latin.
LAA   Tue Aug 08, 2006 5:32 pm GMT
I would not say that English is a hybrid of Germanic and Latin. It's VOCABULARY is actually somewhat of a hybrid.

Sentence structure - Germanic

Grammar - Germanic

Core vocab - Germanic

Phonology - Germanic (although a very unique one within the Germanic family)

But in many ways, English may "seem" as if it is closer to French than it is to say, German. This is because the majority of English vocabulary derives from French. Nearly all of English's advanced vocabulary is of French origin. Often times, I am able to understand, especially in written form, more French than Dutch or German. Granted, some of this is due to my knowledge of Spanish.

As far as the pronounciations go, I think the phonology of French is much more akin to English than Spanish is.

I think many native Romance speakers make the mistake of assuming that Germanic languages like English, are as close to their sister languages as Spanish is to Portuguese, or French is to Italian. That is not the case with the relationship between English and other Germanic languages. Dutch, German, Danish, etc., all sound very foreign to us, with strong differences in phonology. It is very hard for English speakers to distinguish between German or Dutch and other Germanic languages, but not English.
TARZAN   Wed Aug 09, 2006 5:25 am GMT
in spanish everything is pronounced
while in french not everything is pronounced just like english,vocabulary is very similar
Guest   Wed Aug 09, 2006 9:10 am GMT
<in spanish everything is pronounced
while in french not everything is pronounced just like english,vocabulary is very similar>

You are referring to the silent letters? Something the Americans had a go at getting rid of eg. Colour>color
greg   Wed Aug 09, 2006 9:41 am GMT
LAA : « As far as the pronounciations go, I think the phonology of French is much more akin to English than Spanish is. »
C'est totalement faux pour deux raisons :
1/ Il n'existe pas d'unité de mesure de distance entre les systèmes phonologiques d'une langue A et ceux d'une langue B. On a pas encore trouvé l'équivalent du kilomètre en phonétique. Mais peut-être as-tu en réserve une idée géniale à nous proposer ?
2/ Même si le "kilomètre phonétique" existait, il faudrait nécessairement qu'il prenne en compte des paramètres tels que l'accentuation et, à cet égard, le français ("standard" de "France") est absolument aux antipodes de l'anglais et de l'espagnol quelles que soient leurs variantes.

LAA : « I think many native Romance speakers make the mistake of assuming that Germanic languages like English, are as close to their sister languages as Spanish is to Portuguese, or French is to Italian. »
Détrompe-toi. Les erreurs commises par tous les locuteurs de la planète quant à la typologie linguistique sont parfois bien plus radicales. Certains pensent que l'anglais est une langue romane parlée avec un accent anglais. D'autres ne savent pas qu'il existe des familles de langues. Enfin les langues sont foncièrement un non-sujet pour beaucoup de nos contemporains monolingues.
a.p.am.   Wed Aug 09, 2006 8:26 pm GMT
English is closer to Germanic in sentence structure.
LAA - Juaquin en la caja!   Wed Aug 09, 2006 10:37 pm GMT
"English is closer to Germanic in sentence structure."

It IS Germanic in sentence structure.

"C'est totalement faux pour deux raisons" - This is totally false for two reasons.

Ha! We're making progress Greg, lol. jk.
English Imperialism!   Sat Aug 12, 2006 5:05 pm GMT
No, it is the other way round.English isn't full of french words.French is full of English words.
zxczxc   Sat Aug 12, 2006 5:34 pm GMT
LAA, it's not at all hard to differentiate between Dutch and German. There's quite a gulf in the phonology. That said, it's hard to differentiate between the North Germanic languages.
Travis   Sat Aug 12, 2006 8:01 pm GMT
>>LAA, it's not at all hard to differentiate between Dutch and German. There's quite a gulf in the phonology. That said, it's hard to differentiate between the North Germanic languages.<<

There are very clearly distinguishing phonological features between Dutch and German, yes, but even still, Dutch is still a Low German language, and as one still has a lot in common with High German (much more so than with English most definitely), including with respect to overall sound profile.
paulina   Thu Aug 17, 2006 4:00 pm GMT
my french teacher is making me write an essay on how french ifluenced english and it easy because there is sooooo much about it and i couldnt believe it!!!its so true!