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Feanor2
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I have never gotten that impression.
"Anglo-Saxons" in the Church
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tomarin
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But I think if you studied German, you’d see English is a lot closer to it in structure than French is to either. That’s why the two languages (English and German) are in the same language family, distinct from the Romance languages.
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Ridgerunner
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I am aware that English is considered a “Teutonic” language, but I’m very skeptical of that classification. And really, there is no difference in sentence structure between English and French, with the sole exception that the adjectives usually follow the nouns they modify instead of preceding them. Even a lot of the idiomatic expressions are the same. Might be true of German as well, but I never studied German, so I couldn’t say about that.
Truthfully, I think the Franks, Burgundians and other Germanic peoples influenced French a lot more than people think they did. French is, indeed, considered a “Romance language”, but it isn’t as much of one as is, say, Spanish.
Truthfully, I think the Franks, Burgundians and other Germanic peoples influenced French a lot more than people think they did. French is, indeed, considered a “Romance language”, but it isn’t as much of one as is, say, Spanish.
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Londoner
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If @HomeschoolDad is talking about the Irish legal system, it is a system based on English common law. Additionally, some statue law from the English/British period of Ireland’s history remains in force. The Scottish legal system, on the other hand, is completely different, although the Supreme Court in London does have some jurisdiction in Scotland.
Tis_Bearself
Patron
True, but I’m not sure how a country’s legal system imparts to them a national identity of being all Anglo-Saxon or of approaching all issues in a purportedly “Anglo Saxon” manner.
I would further note that if we discuss USA, there are quite a few states whose state law is actually based in significant part on Spanish law and one (Louisiana) where it is based on French law. (People who have to take state bars are painfully aware of this especially if they are trying to qualify in two different states with two different bases for the state law.) It doesn’t make the people in the Spanish law states (one of which is California, another of which is Texas) somehow “Hispanic” in their outlook or the people in Louisiana somehow act collectively “French”.
I would further note that if we discuss USA, there are quite a few states whose state law is actually based in significant part on Spanish law and one (Louisiana) where it is based on French law. (People who have to take state bars are painfully aware of this especially if they are trying to qualify in two different states with two different bases for the state law.) It doesn’t make the people in the Spanish law states (one of which is California, another of which is Texas) somehow “Hispanic” in their outlook or the people in Louisiana somehow act collectively “French”.
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Londoner
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No, I agree. I was just trying to suggest an explanation for the theory that the Irish approach to the sexual abuse scandal was somehow Anglo-Saxon. I did think of Louisiana (I didn’t know that Spanish law still existed in the US), but I guessed @HomeschoolDad was thinking of federal law. But then I guess the scandal in the US initially broke in Massachusetts, so maybe there are local variations. I don’t imagine English common law has much to do with it really.
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tomarin
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Well, I’ve never thought of the structure of French and English being similar. Despite knowing French better than any of the other languages we’re discussing (I know a little German and have a smattering of Spanish, Portuguese and Italian) I still have a hard time ‘thinking’ in French, whereas I find thinking in German pretty easy once you get used to the rhythm of it. I always attributed that to our languages’ shared roots.
Also, I’m pretty sure that adding vocabulary to a language, doesn’t alter the structure of the language or put it in another language family. Japanese has a lot of Chinese words in it - a lot - to supplement the native Japanese words but it’s still distinctively Japanese and not at all Chinese at the structural level of how the language works. There’s no way that knowing Japanese would help a Japanese person construct an intelligible sentence in Chinese, despite that borrowed Chinese vocabulary. I would say that’s the relationship of French to English: the French donated a bunch of vocabulary to our language during the time of the Norman invasion, but those words didn’t supplant the native Anglo-Saxon words, so that when we want to sound poetic or flowery we reach for one of the French-derived words, but for the most part we could get along without them. The vocabulary didn’t alter the structure or grammar of the language enough to create a hybrid of French and English (a pidgin). Most English people continued to speak English after the invasion even if it expanded their or their descendent’s vocabulary. Then the vocabulary expanded again during the Enlightenment when the explosion of scientific knowledge required a lot of new vocabulary, which was created from Latin and Greek roots.
Why would you say French is less of a Romance language than Spanish? What would make one ‘less’ Romance (as I thought it was just a matter of common descent)?
To me, Spanish and French seem very close, in fact I credit knowing French with the degree to which I can ‘get by’ in Spanish despite not having any formal training in it; whereas English and German seem very close - that’s why I picked up German pretty quickly and enthusiastically in school. I think if I had time to devote to it I could get fluent in German much faster than it would take me for French - or perhaps I should say took me since I did achieve semi-fluency in French. (Maybe some of that is misplaced but it helps if you like a language, and I’ve always liked German because to my ears it sounds like an archaic kind of English.) I’m also surprised to hear you say the idioms are the same in French and English, as I think I know a fair number of them in French but I thought they were completely different from our idioms. In fact that’s the definition of an idiomatic expression, I thought.
Also, I’m pretty sure that adding vocabulary to a language, doesn’t alter the structure of the language or put it in another language family. Japanese has a lot of Chinese words in it - a lot - to supplement the native Japanese words but it’s still distinctively Japanese and not at all Chinese at the structural level of how the language works. There’s no way that knowing Japanese would help a Japanese person construct an intelligible sentence in Chinese, despite that borrowed Chinese vocabulary. I would say that’s the relationship of French to English: the French donated a bunch of vocabulary to our language during the time of the Norman invasion, but those words didn’t supplant the native Anglo-Saxon words, so that when we want to sound poetic or flowery we reach for one of the French-derived words, but for the most part we could get along without them. The vocabulary didn’t alter the structure or grammar of the language enough to create a hybrid of French and English (a pidgin). Most English people continued to speak English after the invasion even if it expanded their or their descendent’s vocabulary. Then the vocabulary expanded again during the Enlightenment when the explosion of scientific knowledge required a lot of new vocabulary, which was created from Latin and Greek roots.
Why would you say French is less of a Romance language than Spanish? What would make one ‘less’ Romance (as I thought it was just a matter of common descent)?
To me, Spanish and French seem very close, in fact I credit knowing French with the degree to which I can ‘get by’ in Spanish despite not having any formal training in it; whereas English and German seem very close - that’s why I picked up German pretty quickly and enthusiastically in school. I think if I had time to devote to it I could get fluent in German much faster than it would take me for French - or perhaps I should say took me since I did achieve semi-fluency in French. (Maybe some of that is misplaced but it helps if you like a language, and I’ve always liked German because to my ears it sounds like an archaic kind of English.) I’m also surprised to hear you say the idioms are the same in French and English, as I think I know a fair number of them in French but I thought they were completely different from our idioms. In fact that’s the definition of an idiomatic expression, I thought.
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Tis_Bearself
Patron
Spanish law very much affects property rights. Spanish law states have “community property” laws for married couples that generally mean everything one person acquires during the marriage, whether it’s debt or asset, is jointly owned. Without some legal machinations, that means if I marry a guy and he runs up 500 grand in debt and then we get divorced, I’m on the hook for half his debt, and if he makes 10 million dollars while we’re married and then we get divorced, I get half of that. The states based on British common law don’t have this concept of joint property. It is definitely something to be aware of when you go to get married.
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I had in mind, in this country anyway, both federal law, and the law of that majority of states that is based on English common law.
Tis_Bearself
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Federal law in the USA governs a relatively small proportion of people’s daily life. Most stuff involving Joe Citizen as opposed to XYZ Corporation is handled in state court.
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Ridgerunner
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Again, I have no pretensions to being a linguist, so I probably shouldn’t say anything at all. But I will. 
I couldn’t say how much French contributed to the structure of English. I merely observe that the structures are essentially the same. French contributed a great number of words to English, particularly those dealing with more sophisticated subjects like business. If you’re talking business, you’re largely using French words.
English really didn’t take shape until Chaucer’s time. Prior to that, it was a number of dialects, some of which were mutually intelligible and some of which were not. Chaucer’s English is very much influenced by French, or at least Norman French, as that was the language of the upper classes at the time. Chaucer was a businessman, and it was considered a novelty at the time that he sometimes wrote in a Frenchified version of the West Midlands dialect rather than in French. Chaucer’s very name is French-derived,
In doing so, though, he “created” modern English in the same way Dante “created” modern Italian, by creating a monumentally successful literary work in the common language. But even then, Chaucer’s English was really only the English of London, and not all of that.
I couldn’t say how much French contributed to the structure of English. I merely observe that the structures are essentially the same. French contributed a great number of words to English, particularly those dealing with more sophisticated subjects like business. If you’re talking business, you’re largely using French words.English really didn’t take shape until Chaucer’s time. Prior to that, it was a number of dialects, some of which were mutually intelligible and some of which were not. Chaucer’s English is very much influenced by French, or at least Norman French, as that was the language of the upper classes at the time. Chaucer was a businessman, and it was considered a novelty at the time that he sometimes wrote in a Frenchified version of the West Midlands dialect rather than in French. Chaucer’s very name is French-derived,
In doing so, though, he “created” modern English in the same way Dante “created” modern Italian, by creating a monumentally successful literary work in the common language. But even then, Chaucer’s English was really only the English of London, and not all of that.
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tomarin
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I would have said it contributed zilch to the structure of English - but I’m not a linguist either and could be wrong. I also wouldn’t agree that the structure of English and French are the same but I don’t know how to go about ‘proving’ to you this is true. It just seems self-evident to me.
(But along that line, take just one phrase: ‘to be right’ about something. In French you ‘have the reason’ (avoir raison), and in Spanish you have the reason ‘tenir razon’ but in English you are right and in German incidentally, you are right (sein richtig). I feel like these similar patterns play themselves out in a wide field of meanings in both languages (English-German on the one hand and Spanish-French on the other) indicating common descent and a kind of common inherited logic as well.)
As for Chaucer, good point, and I have no doubt the success of Canterbury Tales did a lot towards cementing the hegemonic position of London English as the official English. As a footnote, a lot of those other dialectical Englishes survived well into the twentieth century, as you’re no doubt aware.
(But along that line, take just one phrase: ‘to be right’ about something. In French you ‘have the reason’ (avoir raison), and in Spanish you have the reason ‘tenir razon’ but in English you are right and in German incidentally, you are right (sein richtig). I feel like these similar patterns play themselves out in a wide field of meanings in both languages (English-German on the one hand and Spanish-French on the other) indicating common descent and a kind of common inherited logic as well.)
As for Chaucer, good point, and I have no doubt the success of Canterbury Tales did a lot towards cementing the hegemonic position of London English as the official English. As a footnote, a lot of those other dialectical Englishes survived well into the twentieth century, as you’re no doubt aware.
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Ridgerunner
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There are lots of idioms, most of which I forget. But for example “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” is the same in French and English, and the reference is not literally true in either. “Easier said than done”.
Years ago, my wife and I were on a French island in the Caribbean. I was already getting a bit rusty with my French. There were literally no Americans or Brits there. All the tourists were French. I did have difficulty communicating with the people from France, but not with the locals. I could converse with them pretty well. Speed was part of it, but there was something about the cadence as well. French is not supposed to be accented, but they did accent it just a little, which made it (for me) easier to understand.
Later I learned that the locals had been there for 300 years and originally came from Normandy. It appears the Norman French of at least 300 years ago had a cadence closer to English than modern French does.
Years ago, my wife and I were on a French island in the Caribbean. I was already getting a bit rusty with my French. There were literally no Americans or Brits there. All the tourists were French. I did have difficulty communicating with the people from France, but not with the locals. I could converse with them pretty well. Speed was part of it, but there was something about the cadence as well. French is not supposed to be accented, but they did accent it just a little, which made it (for me) easier to understand.
Later I learned that the locals had been there for 300 years and originally came from Normandy. It appears the Norman French of at least 300 years ago had a cadence closer to English than modern French does.
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Pattylt
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I love Canterbury Tales but I can’t understand it when read aloud. I have only a little trouble when reading it even with the odd spellings!
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tomarin
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I have to read it in translation.
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Pattylt
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Well, that’s too easy!
. I understand just enough Middle English to muddle my way through it. It’s really beautiful.
. I understand just enough Middle English to muddle my way through it. It’s really beautiful.
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Ridgerunner
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I remember in college taking a course in Chaucer. The professor was really demanding. We had to write papers on research points nearly every class. He also wrote the tests in Middle English, so if we didn’t really apply ourselves to the original, we would flunk for sure. In papers, he absolutely forbade quotes in translation.
You do get onto it after awhile if the pressure is sufficient.
You do get onto it after awhile if the pressure is sufficient.
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Salibi
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Sounds like a serious professor.
By the way, guys, thank you all for this discussion on languages. It’s really enjoyable and edifying. I never knew Irish had no words for yes and no; i looked it up and turns out it’s true.
I’m a former Francophone who lost the ability to speak French due to extended disuse so I can relate.
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tomarin
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What a cool professor!
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Ridgerunner
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I gathered that you are likely Lebanese. I have understood that many Lebanese can speak French. Wasn’t Beirut once known as the “Paris of the Middle East”?
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