Should English be considered a Latin language?

Keith   Sun Aug 05, 2007 4:44 am GMT
I keep encountering words that are either directly from Latin or French. It's all over in the English tongue. Grammatically, English is far from being like other Latin languages, but if one looks at vocabulary, one can say English belongs to the Latin branch of languages.
furrykef   Sun Aug 05, 2007 4:57 am GMT
No, because the most essential vocabulary doesn't come from Latin. What are some of the most common words? A, the, be, have, go, I, you, he, she, it, walk, run, etc., etc..., and inflections thereof. None of these words are from Latin. By contrast, in Spanish, every single one of these words comes directly from Latin, although of course they have changed in both pronunciation and meaning with time. But English's basic foundation is still English.

- Kef
greg   Sun Aug 05, 2007 11:41 am GMT
Keith : « Grammatically, English is far from being like other Latin languages, but if one looks at vocabulary, one can say English belongs to the Latin branch of languages. »

La raison pour laquelle l'anglais est une langue germanique n'est ni lexicale ni grammaticale mais historique : l'anglais contemporain est issu d'une paléolangue germanique.






Keith : « Should English be considered a Latin language? »
furrykef : « No, because the most essential vocabulary doesn't come from Latin. »

Non, ce n'est pas la raison. Même si la totalité du vocabulaire "essentiel" de l'anglais actuel avait été empruntée à l'ancien polonais (en plus des emprunts réels à l'ancien français qui, soit dit en passant, ne sont pas tous "intellectuels", "abstraits", "conceptuels" ou "livresques" → <air> <face> <dance> <flower> <use> etc), l'anglais resterait quand même une langue germanique.
Même si l'anglais n'avait plus un seul mot d'origine germanique, cette langue ne quitterait pas sa famille linguistique pour autant : c'est l'histoire qui détermine l'hérédité linguistique (pas le lexique ni la grammaire → tous deux sont évolutifs).
Pete   Sun Aug 05, 2007 2:30 pm GMT
For the first time, I CAN say that I agree to that. I feel happy it's the first time that I fully understand every word and phrase of a French text. :)

Regards

Pedro de Peru
Skippy   Sun Aug 05, 2007 2:32 pm GMT
One of my linguistics professors told us that, while Latin or Norman French accounts for maybe 40% of our vocabulary and Germanic about 40%, the words we use in every day speech are more like 10% Latin to 90% Germanic.
Seljuk   Sun Aug 05, 2007 2:40 pm GMT
I think at that point, grammatical structure of a language is much more of importance than its vocabulary. English can never be said to be a Romance language really. No matter how many Romance words it has, it is still a Germanic grammatical structured language...
Skippy   Sun Aug 05, 2007 3:17 pm GMT
As ever, I'm with the Germanic crowd, but English syntax seems to be more in sync with French than with German or Dutch... I could be wrong, I'm just thinking off the top of my head.
Guest   Sun Aug 05, 2007 3:24 pm GMT
See, why is it that always English-speakers want their language to be romantic, that's not gonna happen deal with it.
greg   Sun Aug 05, 2007 8:26 pm GMT
Seljuk : « Germanic grammatical structured language...».

Et, selon toi, c'est quoi une structure germanique ?
Seljuk   Sun Aug 05, 2007 9:25 pm GMT
Greg, I normally don't respond to people who speak French in an English forum but I'm breaking this rule of mine just for you, but only for once.

Now, there are so many similar shared grammatical rules in both English and German or even Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish or some others, you know. But are the ones of French more than the ones of these languages with English? Sharing vocabulary to a certain extent doesn't necessarily mean to be said to be in the same language groupe, right? For centuries, people didn't discover that English belonged to Romance languages groupe, but you did it, huh? Do you think this is logical enough? Personally, I don't really think it is...
Guest   Sun Aug 05, 2007 9:48 pm GMT
Even if gramatically and in the vocabulary it is not far from a Latin language, it cannot be considered one in the family. I think it has not the class to pretend it
greg   Sun Aug 05, 2007 10:58 pm GMT
Seljuk : « I normally don't respond to people who speak French in an English forum but I'm breaking this rule of mine just for you, but only for once. »

Ta grandeur d'âme m'honore mais tu es sur un forum *M*U*L*T*I*L*I*N*G*U*E*.




Seljuk : « Now, there are so many similar shared grammatical rules in both English and German or even Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish or some others, you know. But are the ones of French more than the ones of these languages with English? ».

Tel n'était pas mon propos puisque, au contraire, je disais que la grammaire (pas davantage que le vocabulaire d'ailleurs) ne suffit pas à établir la filiation d'une langue. Ce qui suffit à établir la parenté entre une langue contemporaine et un ancien idiome éteint c'est le fait que la première procède du second, à l'exclusion de tout autre facteur.

Ce que j'affirmais pour le lexique vaut pour la grammaire : même si l'anglais évoluait au point de perdre toutes les règles grammaticales prétendument germaniques, cette langue serait malgré tout germanique.

Prenons du recul : toutes les langues indo-européennes sont... indo-européennes, quelle que soit la nature de leur lexique ou de leur grammaire, n'est-ce pas ?

Prenons encore plus de recul : même si un oiseau perd la faculté de voler, il reste un oiseau. L'autruche est un oiseau. Le kiwi est un oiseau. Le dodo était un oiseau.

Quand on dit qu'une langue est germanique, slave ou latine, on veut dire qu'elle appartient à ces familles linguistiques. Mais on ne dit rien ni sur son vocabulaire ni sur sa grammaire. Bien sûr, il se trouve que le vocabulaire et la grammaire des langues apparentées ont comme un air de famille. Mais même si tel n'était pas le cas, cela ne changerait rien à la réalité de la filiation.
OïL   Mon Aug 06, 2007 3:19 pm GMT
"Should English be considered a Latin language?"

Evidemment non.
L'anglais moderne est très différent des autres langues germaniques mais malgré son vocabulaire il ne s'est pas rapproché pour autant des langues romanes.
Au contraire, son évolution l'a à certains égards conduits à accentuer des traits syntaxiques hyper-germaniques (dans l'utilisation des particules séparables par ex.)
Seljuk   Mon Aug 06, 2007 4:36 pm GMT
Greg, as i don't speak French, I haven't understood much of what you have written. So i can't respond it. But i have an advice for you here.

Just accept that French is faaaaaaar behind of English. And as we don't live in the 17th century, you cannot expect everybody to understand French. In the 21th century which we live in, ENGLISH IS THE RULING ONE REALLY...ACCEPT...
furrykef   Mon Aug 06, 2007 4:37 pm GMT
I assume your post was made partly in jest, Seljuk, but I'm afraid it's not that funny considering there are people here who do feel that way...