Is it true that Latin, the language of the romans, started an evolution in western language?

Depends how you define "western languages".

Latin was indeed the only language of a unified, developed, civilized and cultured place in western Europe (and central, by western I mean this time "everything west of Greece"), for a very long time. Also all Romance languages (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, etc) are direct descendants of Latin and English is very heavily influenced by it too (with over 40% of the vocabulary of Latin origin).

Depends how you define "western languages".

Latin was indeed the only language of a unified, developed, civilized and cultured place in western Europe (and central, by western I mean this time "everything west of Greece"), for a very long time. Also all Romance languages (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, etc) are direct descendants of Latin and English is very heavily influenced by it too (with over 40% of the vocabulary of Latin origin).
My Latin teacher says 60%.
But nevertheless Latin was the base language for those we would think as western. Even if the language is not of Latin origin, most European languages use the Latin Alphabet.
Plus it is the language of science and medicine.

My Latin teacher says 60%.

Might be, though I think it's closer to 50%. :)

Edit: Wiki says 56-57% so I think you're right.

Latin has also been an official language in most countries of Europe until very recently, and was (and still is!) the language of the Roman Catholic Church.

Is it true that Latin, the language of the romans, started an evolution in western language?
What meant by "evolution" here?

It was highly influential obviously, but it's not as if languages prior to Latin were somehow less sophisticated (try Greek for sophistication) than either Latin or later languages.

latin, especially *vulgar* latin (i am off on my terminology here, surely it is called differently in english... it ought to refer to anything post 50 AD -though even Cicero used some of *vulgar latin's* forms- that was actually used by the populace of any roman province at the time) is the origin of the romance languages. That incudes spanish, italian, rumanian, french, occitan, portugese, english by association (norman conquest, even though english is not a romance language it is heavily influenced by one of its decendants).

so yes, it was the birthing grounds for the romance languages. it had an immense influence on english (not only via the norman conquest, also courtesy off the renaissance). personally I would go so far as to name it the most important language up until today.

What meant by "evolution" here?

It was highly influential obviously, but it's not as if languages prior to Latin were somehow less sophisticated (try Greek for sophistication) than either Latin or later languages.

you will have to admit though that most loan-words used by the english language are borrowed from the french/latin. Sure, some are taken from the Greek language... but that is mostly due to Latin borrowing from the greek and to the renaissance deifying anything that existed prior to 1066.

PS: in this post words have come from

latin/french origin: 6++
germanic roots: 3+

latin, especially *vulgar* latin (i am off on my terminology here, surely it is called differently in english... it ought to refer to anything post 50 AD -though even Cicero used some of *vulgar latin's* forms- that was actually used by the populace of any roman province at the time) is the origin of the romance languages. That incudes spanish, italian, rumanian, french, occitan, portugese, english by association (norman conquest, even though english is not a romance language it is heavily influenced by one of its decendants).

so yes, it was the birthing grounds for the romance languages. it had an immense influence on english (not only via the norman conquest, also courtesy off the renaissance). personally I would go so far as to name it the most important language up until today.

Vulgar Latin is the correct name in English, so you didn't make any mistake with the name. :)

An interesting fact is that some Romance languages do show a limited number of features inherited directly from classical Latin, but those are few and usually very conservative languages.

[QUOTE=Mirc]
(Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, etc)QUOTE]

Catalan = Spanish

Yep, all of the Latin languages originated from Vulgar Latin.

(Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, etc)

Catalan = Spanish

Maybe I worded this wrong, but I meant that Castilian and Catalan are considered different languages... If they are together grouped in the languages spoken in Spain, that's another story. :)

Maybe I worded this wrong, but I meant that Castilian and Catalan are considered different languages... If they are together grouped in the languages spoken in Spain, that's another story. :)

Nah, I realized my wrong-doing and changed the reply before it was too late - unfortunately you still managed to quote it. :p

I don't see how Latin started an evolution. It was part of an ongoing evolution in languages that had already been happening for a long time and still is.

But I must point out that while it may be true that some vast percentage of English words come from Latin, most of those are pretty specialist and not used very often. As a rule, where a Germanic word has a Latin or French-derived synonym, the Germanic one is the one that's used in everyday speech. Also, of course, English isn't really much like Latin in terms of grammar and so on, despite the attempts of various early modern linguists to make it as much like Latin as they could.

personally I would go so far as to name it the most important language up until today.

In Europe, certainly.

Latin and English is very heavily influenced by it too (with over 40% of the vocabulary of Latin origin).
A misleading statistic (whatever it actually is)- most Latin-derived English words are technical terms that are used rarely outside of certain fields, but their existence creates a disproportionate appearance of Latin influence. Relatively few Latin-derived words are common in every conversation, and most of these are used relatively infrequently. (How often would you say "infrequently", for example?)

(How often would you say "infrequently", for example?)

Infrequently

A misleading statistic (whatever it actually is)- most Latin-derived English words are technical terms that are used rarely outside of certain fields, but their existence creates a disproportionate appearance of Latin influence. Relatively few Latin-derived words are common in every conversation, and most of these are used relatively infrequently. (How often would you say "infrequently", for example?)

Not denying that English is a west-Germanic language. But don't deny the Latin influence.

Not denying that English is a west-Germanic language. But don't deny the Latin influence.
Good point, but most of those words are, as I said, relatively uncommon, while words like "it", "what" and "say" occur very regularly. While a minority of English words are actually derived from Old English, the majority of words spoken are.

And "technical" is Greek. :p

Actually most one-syllabic words used in every-day conversations are of Germanic origin (north- and west-Germanic), hence even pre-dating Old English. Many of these are pretty easy to spot for a German since they are similar to the ones we still use (word/Wort, still/still, sword/Schwert, arm/Arm, hand/Hand, finger/Finger, ring/Ring, light/Licht, foot/Fuß, blood/Blut, nose/Nase, lips/Lippen, etc etc) though sometimes their meaning has changed a bit.

Many words of Latin origin found their way into the English language first through the heavy influence of French, Romance influence yes, Latin though only starting with the 16th century, roundabout.

xdeletedxx

Good point, but most of those words are, as I said, relatively uncommon, while words like "it", "what" and "say" occur very regularly. While a minority of English words are actually derived from Old English, the majority of words spoken are.

And "technical" is Greek. :p

You are right about technical, sorry. :)

I read on Wiki that from the most used English words, 83% are of Germanic origin, and I know that also, the (very simplified) grammar is clearly of Germanic origin.

Many words of Latin origin found their way into the English language first through the heavy influence of French, Romance influence yes, Latin though only starting with the 16th century, roundabout.

I will have to disagree with that. Only with the last part of the last phrase, though. There is a Latin substratum in English that existed since before successive the Germanic invasions. Words like "mountain", "valley", "river", "city", "giant" exist in the languages of the British Isles, in slightly different forms, since the ancient times, being actually the oldest words in English (while one might argue that Greek words are older, they either entered through Latin or were borrowed later).

Again, I'm NOT denying that English is a Germanic language. An English speaker is much more likely to understand "Der Man hat ein Haus und ein Hund" than "El hombre tiene una casa y un cane". :)

"The man has a house and a dog"

Greek is the start of modern languages , including Latin.

Proto-Indo-European is the start of all modern European language.

And from what I know, the Romance languages are all just heavily dialectized versions of Vulgar Latin that separated from each other due to time, distance, and the dissolution of the Roman Empire.

Though English definitely has more of a Germanic influence (especially grammar-wise) than a Latin one. The basic words are almost all Germanic-- it's the ideas and things that Germanic words could not describe as well as the Latin ones that became Latin words.

Proto-Indo-European is the start of all modern European language.

And from what I know, the Romance languages are all just heavily dialectized versions of Vulgar Latin that separated from each other due to time, distance, and the dissolution of the Roman Empire.

Though English definitely has more of a Germanic influence (especially grammar-wise) than a Latin one. The basic words are almost all Germanic-- it's the ideas and things that Germanic words could not describe as well as the Latin ones that became Latin words.
QFT!!! :thumbsup:

I tried and tried to add something to that post and couldn't think of anything. :)

Proto-Indo-European is the start of all modern European language.

Just a side note: Finnish and Basque aren't indo-european.

sorry, but basque (and catalan) aren't really what springs to the layman's mind when you talk about these things. heck... i learned last year tha Rumanian was a Romance language! kind of figures, given the name, sure. It is not a disregard for either language that has not been mentioned. Ask anybody in the street what is a Romance language.... answers will be (usually) Italian, Spanish, French, *pause* , Portuguese, *pause*, *long pause*.... it is really not necessary to be a linguist to participate in these debates. imho.

I just pointed out that not all modern European languages are indo-European, because some people don't know it. All the big ones off course are.

I know. I did not mean to offend. Just wanted to throw in that usually you are talking about the big guns as regards to Romance languages. While Basque for example has been the pleasuredome for linguists since its rediscovery it does not really have impact on Romance studies (I might have missed that though, my bad in that case).

Your point is valid, however, and noted. Not all european languages are grandchildren of latin or germanic or any language predating these. That is one of the kinks of linguistics :D

sorry if I came across as rude. I should have phrased it differently.

Oops, I knew that Finnish was in a separate language family, just figured that it led back to PIE. :(

I remember reading something about some scientists trying to piece together a "Proto-World" language, since the words for "one," "two," and "no" seem to be similar across the world. Then again, there are those who believe that language arose separately and simultaneously in two parts of the world (the Euro-Afro-Middle East, and Asia, which migrated to the Americas).

Just a side note: Finnish and Basque aren't indo-european.

As well as Hungarian, Turkish (obvious, but since Turkey is partially in Europe why not?), and all the Tartar languages in Russia and Ukraine aren't Indo-European either.

sorry if I came across as rude.

No, not at all, it just sounded like you had misunderstood my post. I wasn't offended :)

As well as Hungarian, Turkish (obvious, but since Turkey is partially in Europe why not?), and all the Tartar languages in Russia and Ukraine aren't Indo-European either.
Although Hungarian is loosely connected to Finnish and Estonian, isn't it? IIRC, the Magyars came from somewhere in the Baltic coast region, which used to be Finno-Ugric speaking before the Slavic expansion.

Although Hungarian is loosely connected to Finnish and Estonian, isn't it?

Exactly, and neither of those is Indo-European. :) Some linguists even tried to connect this family with the Turkic languages, actually, but not enough evidence was found (plus there's the annoying stress rule that's exactly the opposite in Turkish and Hungarian - in Hungarian the stress is always on the first syllable, without exception, while in Turkish the great majority of the word have it on the last).

Slavic languages are, though, of course. ;) :D

Oops, I knew that Finnish was in a separate language family, just figured that it led back to PIE. :(

I remember reading something about some scientists trying to piece together a "Proto-World" language, since the words for "one," "two," and "no" seem to be similar across the world. Then again, there are those who believe that language arose separately and simultaneously in two parts of the world (the Euro-Afro-Middle East, and Asia, which migrated to the Americas).

It's all pissing into the wind at the moment. The problem is we have no accepted way of establishing links that far back. We've probably had complex language capacity (syntax and grammar) for about 150 000 years and we've not even pieced together languages back for 10 000 years yet.

The problem is, as you move into the more distant past, and analyse more and more languages, the signal-to-noise ratio on similarities gets higher, and it's virtually impossible to tell what is and is not actually a genuine relationship instead of random chance.

Personally I think that languages probably aren't all related in any demonstrable way. Language changes too much even over shorter periods of time.

Is it true that Latin, the language of the romans, started an evolution in western language?

It started the evolution of modern romance - French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese etc... - languages but that's all.

Specify your word "etc.". Does this include english?

Specify your word "etc.". Does this include english?

Not really because English is not a romance language. Latin has influenced English but it wasn't the start of that modern Germanic language nor entirely responsible for its evolution.

The one thing about Latin's influence on English is that it was forced. A lot of words were borrowed and the grammar was forced to comply to Latin. It wasn't a natural evolution like in the Romance languages.

Which is why they say that if take out all the Latin in English one won't be able to utter a proper sentence but that's only because it was forced to become that way.

The first change to Anglo-Saxon (Old English) came about with the introduction of Christianity into Britain whereby Latin words came into the vocabulary through ecclesiastical means. The next big change for English was through Old French by way of the Norman Conquest. It was during the Renaissance and the centuries following that period that Latin, and to a lesser extent Greek (Latinised), became more important than ever.

Also, of course, English isn't really much like Latin in terms of grammar and so on, despite the attempts of various early modern linguists to make it as much like Latin as they could.

Yes, I agree. It just doesn't work imo. If you know a bit of German, you'll find how remarkably similar the two languages' grammars are. This despite the fact that German retains declensions. However, the big difference, of course, is in the vocabulary.

Yes, I agree. It just doesn't work imo. If you know a bit of German, you'll find how remarkably similar the two languages' grammars are. This despite the fact that German retains declensions. However, the big difference, of course, is in the vocabulary.

Actually, as I said earlier in this thread, the vocabulary isn't all that different as long as you stick to basic words referring to everyday concepts and objects. A surprisingly long list. Probably easier to spot for a German than for a native English speaker.

Heh, I recall a test I had in an English school for foreigners. We had to guess the meaning of supposedly "uncommon" English words. I was paired with a Swiss guy, who couldn't guess one (German speaker - wonderful drinking buddy), but I rampaged through the test.
They were all Latin-rooted words that had a more common Anglo-Saxon synonim; between my native Italian and Latin learned in school, I knew them all...

In fact I sometimes think Romance-speakers in English can offen sound stuffy because, given an alternative, I know I'd prefer the more familiar-looking one, which is also however the most 'literary' one. A concept like 'polysyllabic prose' is not easy to grasp for your average Mediterranean, simply because Romance languages are full of long words. It actually took me some time to realise it was a (mild) panning.

Heh, I recall a test I had in an English school for foreigners. We had to guess the meaning of supposedly "uncommon" English words. I was paired with a Swiss guy, who couldn't guess one (German speaker - wonderful drinking buddy), but I rampaged through the test.
They were all Latin-rooted words that had a more common Anglo-Saxon synonim; between my native Italian and Latin learned in school, I knew them all...

In fact I sometimes think Romance-speakers in English can offen sound stuffy because, given an alternative, I know I'd prefer the more familiar-looking one, which is also however the most 'literary' one. A concept like 'polysyllabic prose' is not easy to grasp for your average Mediterranean, simply because Romance languages are full of long words. It actually took me some time to realise it was a (mild) panning.

Hahaha absolutely the same happens to me! :D In England, I had some kind of test to check how well we know the meaning of ancient French words which entered English a long time ago. The same as in your story happened - they were all words that existed and were actually extensively used in modern Romanian. In fact, in an English text I can spot the Latin words by checking for which ones I need a translation and which I can understand on the spot. And the same with syllables happens to me, what is percieved in English as a long word is usually a short word for me. :lol:

People sometimes speak as though Latin (and the Romantic languages) on the one hand, and the Germanic ones on the other hand, existed in a sort of vacuum until post-Roman times. But don't forget that there was Latin influence on the Germanic languages before Christianity even got there. For example (I got all these from Peter Jones' Learn Latin):

street (strata)
butter (butyrum)
mile (mille)
wine (winum)
pin (penna)
pillow (pulvinus)
wall (vallum)
sack (saccus)

Unlike most "Romance" or Latinate words in English, these are "common" words rather than slightly fancy. And you can see that they have changed a bit more from their Latin roots than most of those Latinate words. These are words that the Saxons picked up through dealing with the Romans before they came to Britain at all. So there was some influence from Latin upon English - which can still be discerned now - even before those later influences which have been mentioned, such as Catholic missionaries in the early Middle Ages, the Norman conquest, and the machinations of early modern linguists.

Of course, English is still far more Germanic than Latinate, as has been said; my point is just that we shouldn't think of these as utterly distinct categories even in antiquity.

I'd actually go with needle (German: Nadel) over pin, but I can see it. Wine and street are obvious latin loan-words since we didn't really have those back then.

I know I am a freak, but I just spent 5 minutes thinking about west-Germanic words in the English language (based on their resemblance to German), some of these will be off. I'll spoiler them so as not to bore you :)


arm/Arm, beard/Bart, hair/Haar, finger/Finger, ring/ring, naked/nackt, red/rot, brown/braun, green/grün, white/weiß, light/Licht, hound/Hund, nose/Nase, breast/Brust, lips/Lippen, ear/Ohr, young/jung, gross/groß, long/lang, old/alt, grass/Grass, new/neu, fire/Feuer, shoe/Schuh, can/kann, silver/silber, gold/Gold, stone/Stein, welcome/willkommen, paper/Papier, book/Buch, wild/wild, mouse/Maus, bear/Bär, god/Gott, sword/Schwert, pike/Pike, hoof/Huf, glass/Glass, alone/alleine, many numerals, rat/Ratte, copper/Kupfer, loud/laut, needle/Nadel, hay/Heu, ball/Ball, blue/blau, mask/Maske, house/Haus, ship/Schiff, dead/tot, good/gut, hat/Hut, cap/Kappe, star/Stern, light/leicht, kiss/Kuss, blood/Blut, father/Vater, brother/Bruder, mother/Mutter, sister/Schwester, uncle/Onkel, bed/Bett, cold/kalt, warm/warm, fish/Fisch, heart/Herz, calf/Kalb, bull/Bulle, cow/Kuh, to drink/trinken, to run/rennen, to swim/schwimmen, hold/halt, wound/Wunde, hand/Hand

Just to nitpick: :)

Actually both "uncle" and "Onkel" come from Latin "avunculus" ...

And "long" is also a loanword from Latin, though it entered through Germanic languages, the word came from Latin "longus".

Other examples of common English words that come from Latin would be "mountain", "valley", "river", "castle", "lake", etc. :) Edit: And "really", of course. ;) And "course", BTW. :p And "example", "common", "number", "language", etc. And "etcetera" also.

Anyway, considering the huge number of words in English, it's no wonder that we can find lots of words from any language in English. :)

longus *facepalm*

I was actually wondering about some basic words describing nature which are not corresponding to the ones we have in German. *sky* is north-germanic, that one I knew.

*valley* I would imagine comes from the French, same goes for *river*, *lake* and *mountain* (montagne, only one I still remember) but I'm just shooting in the dark here. I just don't see any reason why latin words should have replaced these basic words for pretty common real-life counterparts. On the other hand, Spanish has *valle*, *lago* and *montanya* (excuse me for using "ny") and the German words for these don't even come close... so... huh.

anyways, english rocks! spanish rules! latin stinks! woohooo!!

They come from Latin:

valley=vallis
river=riparia (vulg.)
lake=lacus
mountain= montanea (vulg.), from "mons" (mount)

Say Mirc, how has Romanian fared with similar common usage words?

Vale
Riu
Lac
Munte

They are all of Latin origin, just shortened, cutting the incredibly complicated system of terminations in Latin. :) There are whole sentences that I can write and that are fully intelligible in Italian (in fact I think I could find whole newspaper articles that are almost fully intelligible, but IDK for sure). :)

I see, so what is the reason that those words were incorporated into what was to become Old English but not into German? Any ideas?

PS: the best move English ever made was to cut the Germanic declension system. but honestly... english has to have the worst pronounciation-to-written-language ratio of any living language.

PS: the best move English ever made was to cut the Germanic declension system. but honestly... english has to have the worst pronounciation-to-written-language ratio of any living language.

Except East Asian languages... :)

I see, so what is the reason that those words were incorporated into what was to become Old English but not into German? Any ideas?

Not sure. Probably had to do with the fact that the Romans conquered all of what is to become England whereas they only conquered parts of Germany. I'm still confused by this as I thought Old English was brought over by the invaders after the fall of the Roman Empire and they displaced the Romano-British?

PS: the best move English ever made was to cut the Germanic declension system. but honestly... english has to have the worst pronounciation-to-written-language ratio of any living language.

We still have the last vestiges of this through the "Saxon Genitive". But that itself is now an outdated term. If you think about it French - a direct descendant of Latin - also lost the declension system. I'm not sure if it's better or for worse. I do know that German syntax is very hard because it relies on word order and on declension. It's either here nor there. Whereas Latin and Russian and others rely entirely on declension and not word order.

Actually, as I said earlier in this thread, the vocabulary isn't all that different as long as you stick to basic words referring to everyday concepts and objects. A surprisingly long list. Probably easier to spot for a German than for a native English speaker.

It depends. Having studied some German I personally do not think they share an extensive vocabulary. Simple words aren't enough. If you want to look hard enough English also shares simple word cognates with just about every other Indo-European language.

I think the big difference is that when creating new words English looked outward - French, Latin etc.. and borrowed - whereas German tended to look inward and use its own stems to create new words. That I think made the vocabularies so different.

Not sure. Probably had to do with the fact that the Romans conquered all of what is to become England whereas they only conquered parts of Germany. I'm still confused by this as I thought Old English was brought over by the invaders after the fall of the Roman Empire and they displaced the Romano-British?

The language that would become English was indeed brought over by the Anglo-Saxons. The degree to which they "displaced" the Romano-British or simply mingled with them is disputed (I understand that scholars today lean more towards the latter), but the languages of the Romano-British were certainly pretty much extinguished. For example, there is very little influence from the Celtic languages upon English, except in place names and a few other elements. Culturally and linguistically, the Anglo-Saxons did displace the Romano-British, although genetically the story might not be quite so simple. So I doubt that much Latin entered the language that way.

The greater influence of Latin upon the Anglo-Saxon language can probably be explained by thinking of other contacts that the Anglo-Saxons would have had with Latin-speakers. For example, the Anglo-Saxons were a trading people who had trading links with people on the continent all the way to Byzantium. They probably picked up a fair few Latin words that way, no doubt as they travelled miles past lakes and mountains to stand on streets, buy pillows and butter, and carry them home again in sacks.

I think the big difference is that when creating new words English looked outward - French, Latin etc.. and borrowed - whereas German tended to look inward and use its own stems to create new words. That I think made the vocabularies so different.

And that is why we are allowed to have words with 20 syllables!

Not sure. Probably had to do with the fact that the Romans conquered all of what is to become England whereas they only conquered parts of Germany. I'm still confused by this as I thought Old English was brought over by the invaders after the fall of the Roman Empire and they displaced the Romano-British?
It's really the Norman conquest you have to look at- Roman influence was largely expunged from Britain by invading Germanic tribes (Saxons, Angles, Jutes and Frisians) after the withdrawal from Brittania. The Norman conquest brought French influence to Britain, including most of the commonly used Latin-derived words.

that's what I said -.-

wait... didn't I?

Good point, but most of those words are, as I said, relatively uncommon, while words like "it", "what" and "say" occur very regularly.
We can't really make a sentence entirely out of "say", "it", "what", &c., now, can we?

You can't deny it, modern grammar has to thank Latin profusely.

We can't really make a sentence entirely out of "say", "it", "what", &c., now, can we?

"I ate a ham sandwich for lunch today." "Who wants to go for a drink after work?" "What are the odds on that horse?" "I wonder where I left my keys..."
Entirely Germanic, entirely functional sentences.

Of course, it's quite true that only using Germanic words would make it incredibly difficult to communicate effectively, but the point is that Latin-derived words are not fundamental to the language. It's quite possible to construct a Germanic-only sentence, but incredibly difficult to construct a Latin-only sentence, let alone one that is every likely to be used.

You can't deny it, modern grammar has to thank Latin profusely.

I don't really see how English - a language where word order is essential and there is virtually no inflection - owes much, grammatically, to Latin, where inflection is essential and word order largely a matter of whim. As far as I can tell, the similarities between them are those common to most Indo-European languages. For example, I don't see any more grammatical similarity between English and Latin than between English and ancient Greek. In fact, probably rather less (Greek and English both have articles, for example, which Latin didn't acquire until the thirteenth century).

Grammatically speaking, modern German owes more to Latin than English does - as I understand it, the habit of putting verbs at the end of sentences emerged as the result of a conscious attempt to imitate Latin. I might be wrong though.

"I ate a ham sandwich for lunch today." "Who wants to go for a drink after work?" "What are the odds on that horse?" "I wonder where I left my keys..."
Entirely Germanic, entirely functional sentences.

Of course, it's quite true that only using Germanic words would make it incredibly difficult to communicate effectively, but the point is that Latin-derived words are not fundamental to the language. It's quite possible to construct a Germanic-only sentence, but incredibly difficult to construct a Latin-only sentence, let alone one that is every likely to be used.
I'm really not denying the Germanic roots of English. Just saying that we couldn't do with only one or the other (as you eluded to). Our language in itself is a mix of the two (and others, of course).

Sorry for that last part I said, I sounded ignorant; I didn't mean to make Latin sound THAT influential!:p Just that, you must admit, without it there would be quite a few troubles.

(Thinks to himself: Wow, I just repeated what we have already agreed upon and have gotten us no-where. How so like me.)

The Germanic framework for English is a fine language in itself, but Latin vocabulary has been used over the years to fill in empty spots or in some cases for verbal variety. For example, we the verbs "oversee" and "supervise" mean the same thing and come from two words of the same meaning but the former is of Romantic descent and the latter of Germanic.

Of course Latin-base words in English should be separated into two categories, one whose words come from the Norman invasion (mostly simple words) and the other whose words were ablated for Latin in the late middle ages, like abstract nouns in "-tion."

For example, we the verbs "oversee" and "supervise" mean the same thing and come from two words of the same meaning but the former is of Romantic descent and the latter of Germanic.

The other way around, surely?

What's also interesting is words that have parallel etymology but completely different meanings - for example, "understanding" and "substance".

the mixed vocabulary of English is, at times, tiring to people learning the language. you have tons of near-synonyms (short/brief, animal/beast, liberty/freedom, great/large/big) and a disassociated lexicon. there is no logical way to go from *holy* to *saint* where German simply adds a suffix (*heilig* - *Heiliger*) or from *mouth* to *oral* (*Mund* - *mündlich*, *oral* is used but usually only when talking about sex or medicine).

once you have mastered that stage, however, English is fun again :)

I see, so what is the reason that those words were incorporated into what was to become Old English but not into German? Any ideas?

PS: the best move English ever made was to cut the Germanic declension system. but honestly... english has to have the worst pronounciation-to-written-language ratio of any living language.

Actually I think the best move English did was cutting out the gender specific labeling like how some language have some items that are male, some female and some neutral. Its confusing

Actually I think the best move English did was cutting out the gender specific labeling like how some language have some items that are male, some female and some neutral. Its confusing

It's confusing because you don't speak a language that groups all objects into male, female or neuter. ;) For me it's confusing to see "a boy" and "a girl", or "the boy" and "the girl, so the same article for both. Makes it seem like we are all asexuals.

right... coming from a language where we are used to 3 genders I often take that convenience in English for granted. At least Spanish gives you ground rules that cover maybe 80% of the nouns, then you get half a dozen exceptions to that rule and you're good. In German it is just so utterly random it's silly, really (it even varies from region to region at times. in the north you'd say "die Cola" while in Bavaria "der Cola" is -apparently, still sounds nuts to me- perfectly legitimate). I have a good friend from the US who has lived in Germany for around 8 years and his German is next to perfect, except that he occasionally confuses a noun's gender and that will inevitably bring someone to ask "where are you from?" within seconds.

good point.

edit: I mentioned Mark Twain's rambling about German before... here's a link, an entertaining read even though it contains the odd error http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html

Well, English does have three genders. It's just that we sensibly confine the masculine and feminine genders to things that really are masculine and feminine, leaving neuter for everything else. Odd that this doesn't seem to have occurred to most other languages...

the mixed vocabulary of English is, at times, tiring to people learning the language. you have tons of near-synonyms (short/brief, animal/beast, liberty/freedom, great/large/big) and a disassociated lexicon. there is no logical way to go from *holy* to *saint* where German simply adds a suffix (*heilig* - *Heiliger*) or from *mouth* to *oral* (*Mund* - *mündlich*, *oral* is used but usually only when talking about sex or medicine).

We've got the same near-synonym situation in Romanian actually, with Latin/Slavic words. :) Just that they are way fewer than the Latin words in English (they make up only 10% of the vocabulary and most of them have also Latin synonyms).

Example (Slavic/Latin): slobozie/libertate (freedom); dragoste/amor (love), zapada/nea (snow), struna/coarda (string of a musical instrument, though the former is out of use, and has never been used much - it's just that I couldn't think of another example right now), ulita/strada (street, and again, "strada" is used probably over 95% of the time).

Well, English does have three genders. It's just that we sensibly confine the masculine and feminine genders to things that really are masculine and feminine, leaving neuter for everything else. Odd that this doesn't seem to have occurred to most other languages...

I just dont get it how a German or Frenchman can go to a candlestick or whatever and call it a she

Simple - in those languages, "she" (or the equivalent) doesn't carry the same connotations that it does in English.

Of course, in Latin a candlestick is neuter - although a candle is feminine. Not sure why.

candles are feminine but sticks are phallic so in the case of a candlestick they cancel each other out to make it neuter.

Of course, in Latin a candlestick is neuter - although a candle is feminine. Not sure why.

Same in Romanian. :)

@Perfection: in Romanian, the scientific word for the phallus is neuter, and the vulgar one is feminine. :p What's the explanation of that?

So you can say something like "Thar she blows!"?

Having dropped neuter somewhere well before there was a written vulgar, we promptly declared the candlestick masculine (candelabro/candeliere), while keeping the candle (candela) feminine.

@Mirc: And because I just love arguing about genitals in the history forum, I'll tell you a curiosity: while as you know in Italian the phallus is masculine, oddly in Sicilian it is a feminine word.

On the discussion of Latin and Germanic words in English, the reverse of the situation described by Sofista and Mirc also applies.

I'm finding that I have a much easier time figuring out what an unknown word might mean in Spanish than my German flatmates or Polish friends do, and it's because of the high number of cognates. I often think a particular word is very basic or obvious while they don't know it and can't work it out, even though in many cases their Spanish is a lot better, more sophisticated and more fluid than mine.

Question for sofista: The Spanish word for penis is 'pene'. There's a type of pasta called 'Penne'. What is the Italian word for penis?

Having dropped neuter somewhere well before there was a written vulgar, we promptly declared the candlestick masculine (candelabro/candeliere), while keeping the candle (candela) feminine.

@Mirc: And because I just love arguing about genitals in the history forum, I'll tell you a curiosity: while as you know in Italian the phallus is masculine, oddly in Sicilian it is a feminine word.

Heh, this is not surprising at all, but those are very close to the Romanian ones: :)

candelabru/candelabre (neuter) (singular/plural)
as opposed to
candela/candele (feminine) (singular/plural)


And that's an interesting fact about Sicilian. :D

@Arwon: indeed in polite Italian a "pene" is a "pene"; the difference with "penne" the pasta is evident to the initiated, because Italian gemination is not cosmetic. Try to pronounce "penne" making it last as long as, say, "pente" and you'll get the difference right out of your mouth. :)

@Mirc: the candelabru/e is close, but the candela/e is indeed identic! C'mon, whisper in my ear the vulgar one, let's see if they're somehow related ;)

Same in Romanian. :)

@Perfection: in Romanian, the scientific word for the phallus is neuter, and the vulgar one is feminine. :p What's the explanation of that?Radical femminist PC mongers.


"Phalluses can be girls too" :rolleyes:

the mixed vocabulary of English is, at times, tiring to people learning the language. you have tons of near-synonyms (short/brief, animal/beast, liberty/freedom, great/large/big) and a disassociated lexicon. there is no logical way to go from *holy* to *saint* where German simply adds a suffix (*heilig* - *Heiliger*) or from *mouth* to *oral* (*Mund* - *mündlich*, *oral* is used but usually only when talking about sex or medicine).

once you have mastered that stage, however, English is fun again :)

Actually that's THE fun part of English. Near-synonyms are just that. They're close but no cigar. There are many nuances to different words that on the surface appear to mean the same thing.

I think French and German genders are okay. They are annoying but okay. If you use the language for a long enough time you become familiar to them.

Although I didn't know that German genders can differ in parts of Germany. Ouch!

One thing I find annoying about French genders is that due to elision you get for example, l'oiseau. How then do you know whether it's male or female? At least, German doesn't have elision.

Sometimes there are general rules that you can learn. So you know that l'oiseau is masculine, because in French, all words that end in -eau are masculine.

Except for l'eau and la peau, which are feminine. But it wouldn't be fun if there weren't exceptions, would it?

Sometimes there are general rules that you can learn. So you know that l'oiseau is masculine, because in French, all words that end in -eau are masculine.

Except for l'eau and la peau, which are feminine. But it wouldn't be fun if there weren't exceptions, would it?

What's French without exceptions? :rolleyes: Bah! :p

Well, English does have three genders. It's just that we sensibly confine the masculine and feminine genders to things that really are masculine and feminine, leaving neuter for everything else. Odd that this doesn't seem to have occurred to most other languages...
I wonder why in English ships are femenine.

I wonder why in English ships are femenine.

They are masculine in Spanish?

I know barco (boat) is masculine. Isn't nave (ship) feminine, Thorgalaeg?

What I think he means, is why don't English-speakers use "it" for ships since "she" and "he" actually mean physical gender, not just grammatical? The answer is that using "she" shows affection for the ship and anthropomorphises it. It's slightly poetic, perhaps like the difference between el mar and la mar.

A lot of men do the same thing with cars.

I know barco (boat) is masculine. Isn't nave (ship) feminine, Thorgalaeg?
Correct. But in Spanish there is not neutral gender. So things are necessarily masculine or femenine.

I know barco (boat) is masculine. Isn't nave (ship) feminine, Thorgalaeg?

In Romanian they are both feminine. :) "Barca" (plural "barci") and "nava" (plural "nave"). Dunno why.


@Mirc: the candelabru/e is close, but the candela/e is indeed identic! C'mon, whisper in my ear the vulgar one, let's see if they're somehow related ;)
I don't need to whisper it in your ear, it is the name of a city in Croatia!! :D And the name of the currency of Bostwana.
Pula.
Edit: It was part of the kingdom of Italy from 1918 to 1947. There is also a small town in Italy with the same name.

Disappointingly, the Sicilian word (minchia) is absolutely unrelated. But its significance is international, as Frank Zappa sung (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqQ8t6N9A0M) about it (warning: you know what to expect from Frank, right?).

Disappointingly, the Sicilian word (minchia) is absolutely unrelated. But its significance is international, as Frank Zappa sung (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqQ8t6N9A0M) about it (warning: you know what to expect from Frank, right?).

Still, even though it's unrelated to the Sicilian one, apparently the word is of Latin origin, since in Portuguese there's a very similar word, AFAIK. :)

(don't quote me on this though, I just heard it about 2 weeks ago from a Brazilian friend of mine)

I searched into a dictionary, and in Italian it means "chaff", and apparently derives from Latin apluda.

Say, is this (http://www.geocities.com/pula_online/etimo.html) Romanian? :)

Say, is this (http://www.geocities.com/pula_online/etimo.html) Romanian? :)
:eek:

Yeah!! Thanks for the link!! :D I finally understood the etymology of the word! (now it seems so obvious)

My attempt at a translation:

This word has a long tradition in the Romanian langauge. Although it was ignored (ignored is not the best word, but best I could think of) by our linguists. In his "Etymologic Dictionary", Ovidiu Densusianu has the courage to write about the "pula". "Pula" comes from the Latin "polla", -am that is the feminine form of "pullus", with the meaning "chicken", or very young animal - of any kind (it's interesting to note that in Romanian "pui" still has this meaning - and I'm sure in Italian a similar word exists, as it does in French). The term came to be transferred at humans to become a "nickname" (there is absolutely no way I can translate in English "nume de alint", nickname is the best I could find), as in "dear", "chicken", "treasure" (used with this meaning even in Latin by Plautus, Horatius, Suetonius); after which it performed a jump into the erotic language: in an old Latin poem, an old homosexual taking a child as his lover calls him "chicken" (again, this "cute nickname" meaning is still persistent in Romanian too). It is not known however what meaning the word has in Vulgar Latin.

The word is in the Romanian language since its very beginnings; it was from us borrowed by some neighboring peoples, with the meaning we know today. Thus, the word entered Hungarian, and our neighbors were never afraid to name their settlements with it (there are villages called "Pula" in the communes Sopron, Somogy, Komaron, Zala, Tolna, in 1225, in the Kingdom of Hungary), and they even used it as surnames: Pulai Istvan (1608), Pulay Thomas, Georgius Pulaj, Franciscus Pulay etc. (Pulai would be the equivalent of "Puleanu", meaning "from Pula").

Neither the Romanians let the word unexplored. In 1594, in the county of Simleu, in the "judet" Salaj (judet is an administrative division in Romania, roughly equivalent in modern Romanian with the English "county") a king called Luca Pula was reigning. And in the Brusturi commune in "judet" Maramures, we have the village "Podpula", and in "The Romanians", in the IX-XIV centuries, the linguist Nicolae Draganu attests Pula as a proper person name, saying "I have even met a waiter with this name".

So "pula" is a word with a perfume of antiquity, a word with tradition ignored by the dictionaries. In The Dictionary of the Academy we can find the banal "cur" (vulgar word for anus), however on "pula" an absolute silence is dropped - Romanian linguists pretending they have never heard it.

Thanks again for the link, this was a great read. :)

I wonder why in English ships are femenine.

I heard it was because a ship, like any woman, shows her topsides, hides her bottom and, when coming into port, always heads for the buoys.

Mirc, "pula" in our language is red. :)