What makes French Latin?

I propose to discuss how close or how distant French is from his ancestor Latin?

The following Latin sentence is taken from Caesars' de bello gallico:

Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae, propterea quod a cultu atque humanitate provinciae longissime absunt minimeque ad eos mercatores saepe commeant atque ea, quae ad effeminandos animos pertinent, important proximique sunt Germanis, qui trans Rhenum incolunt, quibuscum continenter bellum gerunt.

Its translation in French:
Les Belges sont les plus forts de touts ceux-ci, parce que leur culture et éducation est très éloignée de la province et les revendeurs voyagent souvent le plus brièvement à ces derniers et importent cela, qui sert a l'effeminement de l'esprit, et sont les prochains du Teutons, qui habitent au delà du Rhin, avec qui ils fonts sans interruption la guerre.

Its translation in English:
The Belgians are the strongest of all these, because their culture and education is very far distant from the province and the dealers travel often most briefly to these and import that, which serves for the effeminating of the spirit, and which are next ones of the Teutons, which live beyond the Rhine, with whom they lead continuously war .

Its translation in German:
Die Belger sind die stärksten von diesen allen, deshalb weil sie von Kultur und Bildung der Provinz sehr weit entfernt sind und die Händler oft am kürzesten zu diesen reisen und dieses, das zur Verweichlichung des Geistes dient, importieren, und die Nächsten der Germanen sind, die jenseits des Rheins wohnen, mit denen sie andauernd Krieg führen.

The structure and grammar of the Latin text is very different from the french text and quite near to English and even the German text (exept vocabulay). Can one say that French is a Germanic language that uses Latin vocabulary?

"Can one say that French is a Germanic language that uses Latin vocabulary?"


To answer to your qestion, i think the software you used to translate "from" english "to" french is not really usefull.


So to answer to your question which could be interpreted as "bla bla bla rubish....." i will say "bli bli bli......"

This is obviously a machine translation, or just a bad translator, but either way, it doesn't prove anything. French is descended from Latin, therefore it is a Romance language. That can never change. Sorry.

French is a direct descendent of Vulgar Latin spoken by the Roman soldiers that conquered it in ancient times. Would it please you Northern European ignoramuses if French wasn't Latin based? Too bad. Deal with it.

"O tempora! O Mores! Non bis in idem, Incha'Allah!"

UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH......
Another crappy topic.
What makes french latin?
ALL. FULL STOP

French is the descendant of Old Fench, a pidgin Latin tongue, which was spoken {incorrectly} by the german Frankish ruling class. The Franks adopted V.Lat. to their best ability, modeling it after their own germanic speech patterns and sentence structure--not too dissimilar from how pidgin varieties of English are molded and altered by the peoples who adopt them, which continue to show signs of the original language, especially where syntactical and pronunciation characteristics are concerned (eg reduplicating> "good-good" for 'very good' < African origin; "s" for "th" cf. 'I sink so' for 'I think so'; etc).

The Frankish variety of Old French, because it was spoken by the more influential ruling class, was inevitably elevated and immitated to become the standard by which all other 'French' citizens learned to speak.

So I think so--French can be thought of as a german-latin hybrid.

But definitely French is more latinic in its vocabulary; more germanic in its grammatical construct. Verbal conjugations and adjective inflections are Latin; sentence structure and some formations like passé composé are german.

Old French was somewhat more germanic ('randir' for 'run'; 'houseaux' for 'pants', etc], but many of those words have been replace by later romance or directly Latin borrowings.

I would agree more if French and English were grouped together in their own linguistic group : the German-romance languages. they are not really latin and not really germanic, but really both at the same time.

the two languages are similar and share so much.

in general french and English cultures are also "two sisters", even if they (like all sisters) had conflicts in their past. by their geographt they are very close (London and Paris are among the closest European capitals). France has always been associated with England more than with Spain, and England with France more than with Germany.

http://www.gate1travel.com/europe-travel/maps/WesternEuropeMap.gif

JK, I understand your reasoning, and it makes a lot of sense on a cultural level.

However, on a linguistic level, French still has more in common with Spanish than it does with English; and English has more in common with Dutch/German than with French.

English and French--although they share parallel cultural and linguistic histories--do not share the same history. And they do not resemble one another in the end. So a grouping of the two together would not seem advisable.

French IS a romance language !
-80% of the French vobabulary comes from Latin, 15% from Greek
-In "Gallia" the people was romanized ans spoke Vulgar Latin, the Frankish population which conquered Gallia to create "Le Royame des Francs" wasn't really important (in number), the Gallic were more or less 16 millions and the Frankish 200,000...they quickly abandoned their language and their habits to adopt the Gallic one.
-The French language received as Germanic influence as Spanish or Italian...in Spain there was the Visigoth Kingdom and in Italy the Ostrogoth Kingdom...they didn't influence Spanish or Italian !
-The text is written in Classical Latin, not in vulgar latin. Very often in French the sence of the Latin word doesn't have the same sence in French ; for example "humanitate" in the text is translated by "éducation" however "humanitate" became "humanité" in French. "Proximi-que" ("-que" is "et" in Latin) "Proximi" is translated by "prochains" but this word became "proximité" in French.
-The French translation of the text is...bizarre, you know I'm French and when I read that...I didn't undersant everything (^^) and I'm not stupid ! lol !

In French the language of the war comes from Frankish...but we have the Latin word and the Germanic word very often : épée/glaive or armure/cuirasse, haume/casque etc...and this vocabulary is very old...lol !^^

TTT : « Its translation in French: "Les Belges sont les plus forts de touts [sic] ceux-ci (bla bla, bli bli)"».

Quel massacre ! Le pauvre César doit se retourner dans sa tombe...

Texte de César : « Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam, qui ipsorum lingua, Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur. Hi omnes lingua, institutis, legibus inter se differunt. Gallos ab Aquitanis Garumna flumen, a Belgis Matrona et Sequana dividit. Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae, propterea quod a cultu atque humanitate Provinciae longissime absunt, minimeque ad eos mercatores saepe commeant, atque ea quae ad effeminandos animos pertinent important ; proximique sunt Germanis qui trans Rhenum incolunt, quibuscum continenter bellum gerunt. Qua de causa, Helvetii quoque reliquos Gallos virtute praecedunt, quod fere quotidianis proeliis cum Germanis contendunt, cum aut suis finibus eos prohibent, aut ipsi in eorum finibus bellum gerunt. Eorum una pars, quam Gallos obtinere dictum est, initium capit a flumine Rhodano ; continetur Garumna flumine, Oceano, finibus Belgarum ; attingit etiam a Sequanis et Helvetiis flumen Rhenum ; spectant in Septentrionem et orientem solem. Aquitania a Garumna flumine ad Pyrenaeos montes et eam partem Oceani quae est ad Hispaniam pertinet ; spectat inter occasum solis et Septentriones. »

Traduction française : « L'ensemble de la Gaule est divisé en trois parties, l'une habitée par les Belges, l'autre par les Aquitains, et la troisième par ceux qui sont appelés les Celtes dans leur langue et Gaulois dans la nôtre. Tous ces peuples diffèrent entre eux par la langue, les institutions, les lois. Le fleuve Garonne sépare les Gaulois des Aquitains, la Marne et la Seine des Belges. Les plus courageux sont les Belges, parce qu'ils sont très éloignés de la culture et du raffinement de la Province, que les marchands se rendent rarement chez eux et qu'ils n'apportent presque pas ce qui adoucit les cœurs ; ils sont très proches des Germains, qui habitent de l'autre côté du Rhin et avec lesquels ils sont continuellement en guerre. Pour cette même raison, les Helvètes surpassent en vaillance les autres Gaulois, parce qu'ils s'opposent aux Germains par des combats presque quotidiens, soit qu'ils leur interdisent l'accès de leur territoire, soit qu'ils les attaquent sur leurs terres. La partie de la Gaule qu'occupent, comme il a été dit, les Gaulois, commence au Rhône ; elle est délimitée par la Garonne, l'Océan et la frontière belge ; elle s'étend aussi jusqu'au Rhin du côté des Séquanes et des Helvètes ; elle est orientée vers le soleil levant. La Belgique commence à l'extrémité du territoire de la Gaule. Elle s'étend jusqu'au cours inférieur du Rhin ; elle regarde vers le nord et l'orient. L'Aquitaine s'étend de la Garonne aux Pyrénées et à la partie de l'Océan qui baigne l'Espagne ; elle regarde entre le coucher du soleil et le Septentrion. »

Au passage, le français ***EST*** du latin. Le fait que le latin de France parlé en 2001 ne ressemble pas tout à fait au latin de Gaule parlé en 201 prouve qu'il y a eu des évolutions majeures au cours des 18 derniers siècles.




« Guest » : « But definitely French is more latinic in its vocabulary; more germanic in its grammatical construct. Verbal conjugations and adjective inflections are Latin; sentence structure and some formations like passé composé are german. »

Faux. La formation de temps périphrastiques (par opposition aux temps "latins" *majoritairement* synthétiques) est bien antérieure aux invasions barbares et est commune à toute la Romania. Ces temps périphrastiques n'ont pas supplanté les temps synthétiques en un clien d'œil. Les deux formes ont coexisté. D'ailleurs le futur périphrastique roman s'est synthétisé au cours des temps — chose que les langues germaniques n'ont pas encore réalisé.




« guest » : « French is the descendant of Old Fench, a pidgin Latin tongue (...) ».

Faux. L'ancien français n'est pas un pidgin. Comme toutes les langues d'Oïl, c'est une évolution de l'orolatin de Gaule septentrionale.




JK : « I would agree more if French and English were grouped together in their own linguistic group : the German-romance languages. they are not really latin and not really germanic, but really both at the same time. »

Impossible. Le français ***EST*** du latin. Par conséquent la langue française est réellement latine.

<<-The French language received as Germanic influence as Spanish or Italian...in Spain there was the Visigoth Kingdom and in Italy the Ostrogoth Kingdom...they didn't influence Spanish or Italian !
>>

I beg to differ.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spanish_words_of_Germanic_origin

Italian has a lot of german words too: balcone, banca, bianco, scherzo, ballone, razza, fresco, spione...

In Catalan, they call bread 'broa' in addition to 'pan', and the pronunciation of soft 'c' and 'z' [as soft 'th'] is attributed to a german.

<<Faux. La formation de temps périphrastiques (par opposition aux temps "latins" *majoritairement* synthétiques) est bien antérieure aux invasions barbares et est commune à toute la Romania. Ces temps périphrastiques n'ont pas supplanté les temps synthétiques en un clien d'œil. Les deux formes ont coexisté. D'ailleurs le futur périphrastique roman s'est synthétisé au cours des temps — chose que les langues germaniques n'ont pas encore réalisé.
>>

True, but wrong. This does not support your contradiction of the original statement. Prove that there is no german influence on French grammar.
And germanic did have a future tense as Indo-European. It merged with the present indicative to become an Active tense. That has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

<<Faux. L'ancien français n'est pas un pidgin. Comme toutes les langues d'Oïl, c'est une évolution de l'orolatin de Gaule septentrionale.
>>

That is your opinion. Again, no proof.

pidg·in
–noun 1. an auxiliary language that has come into existence through the attempts by the speakers of different languages [Gaulish, Latin & german] to communicate and that is primarily a simplified form of one of the languages [Latin], with a reduced vocabulary [yes] and grammatical structure [yes] and considerable variation in pronunciation [bonta < bonitatum, yes.].
2. (loosely) any simplified or broken form of a language, esp. when used for communication between speakers of different languages [as above, Gaulish, Latin & german].

Also called contact language.

--This is EXACTLY what Old French was--a simplified, broken-down corrupted form of Latin used between celtic, Latin & german groups as a common speech.