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Common ancestry of French and Portuguese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Alas Oscuras Diglot Newbie Mexico Joined 6860 days ago 38 posts - 38 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: French, Japanese | Message 1 of 22 15 June 2006 at 8:15pm | IP Logged |
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I've been wondering a lot about how French became so different in
sound in comparison to the other romance languages; there's a great sound affinnity between, let's say, Italian, Castillian, Galician, etc, but French drifts considerably from that basic pronunciation pattern. My doubt is if this was caused by the survival of the Celtic pronunciation, because as I read somewhere, accents are actually the longest lasting feature of a language. I'm not a linguist, just an aficionado, but my guess is that the pronunciation, the accent, is what really ends making a language evolve. For example, Castillian, Italian and French had a main source: Latin. I'm not sure about the percentange of features as a direct heritage of Latin in French or Italian, but I've heard several times that in Castillian there is a 70- 75% of elements directly originated from it. But my opinion is that the logical reason of the eventual divergence among these languages was the pre-roman tongue; people were used to speak and modulate in a special fashion, and even when they adopted a different language from their old one, the way of producing the sounds lingered, and in time, after centuries, created different languages. Accents are the most lasting linguistical features. So, French sounds very differently, as I said, but I noted similarities in it with other languages: Portuguese and German. In the case of German, I don't speak it, but to me it sounds a lot with "closed" vowels, short ones, and a lot of "consonantation", and I think French shares to certain degree these poorly explained features. I'd say it shouldn't be surprise to find similarities between German and French as they're neighbors, but what haunts is actually the Portuguese: It has, phonetically, a lot of coincidences with French! It's soft sounds, something about its rythm......the general phonetic scheme. I'm not sure, I've done research but haven't found a good answer, but, didn't the Celtic culture kept more its original form in the west and northwest of the Iberian peninsula? Galicia is clearly Celtic, but I'm not sure if Portugal was such an intense Celtic culture. Anyway, a proof of sharing among Galicia and Portugal is the language; wasn't Galican originally completely mingled with old Portuguese? Actually the same thing? That would state a strong cultural relationship, aiming to the Celtic presence in Portugal. Does anyone knows something about this!? I'd love to know if continental Celtic originated the hypthetically underlaying common sound of French and Portuguese. I guess it's a very specifical and difficult wondering, but with God's bless maybe someone has had certain experience in this theme, heh. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6768 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 2 of 22 15 June 2006 at 10:49pm | IP Logged |
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Since nothing other than Latin was written in those countries back then,
it's mostly guesswork as to what and how people were speaking. I suspect that the majority of people living throughout Gaul and Iberia never thoroughly learned proper Latin like they spoke in Rome. Perhaps a diglossia of vulgar Latin and Gallic-accented broken Latin was spoken in France, for example. At any rate, it appears French began to evolve in the third century as Germanic tribes like the Franks settled in Gaul and mixed their own language in with the spoken Latin. Something similar happened in Portugal, but it was the Suevi and Visigoth tribes who ended up influencing Portuguese Latin. Portuguese was also influenced by Arabic during Iberia's period of Moorish rule. Edited by Captain Haddock on 15 June 2006 at 10:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Alas Oscuras Diglot Newbie Mexico Joined 6860 days ago 38 posts - 38 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: French, Japanese | Message 3 of 22 16 June 2006 at 12:12am | IP Logged |
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Oh yes, I didn't remember the Franks were Germanic. Well, that
would explain the similarity I hear between French and German, but I don't think that would explain everything, or that it discards a mayor Celtic influence, because Gaul was populated since long by Celtic tribes. As for the influence posterior to Latin in Iberia, the Suevi and Visigoths surely had an influence, but was their dominion so long and deep to reconfigure the accent of the people settled in today Portugal? It's very difficult to actually change a language from its roots. I still ignore who lived in Portugal before the Roman era. There are the Lusitan, for example, but it's still foggy. What haunts me about this, is to have a glimpse at the sound of ancient Celtic in French and Portuguese, I think it's worth a bit of thinking. Well, and the French is considered chic by many, it would be interesting to know where that "high rated" language found its sound. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| boaziano Triglot Newbie Italy Joined 6960 days ago 21 posts - 21 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Italian*, Sanskrit, English Studies: Hindi, Tibetan, Tamil | Message 4 of 22 16 June 2006 at 2:39am | IP Logged |
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What do you mean for "accent"?
Anyway I don't think that, for example, nasalization could be considered as a distinctive celtic mark... we can find this tract almost in every linguistic family. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sirgregory Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6741 days ago 35 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 5 of 22 16 June 2006 at 10:59am | IP Logged |
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There are similarities between German and French. The big one I noticed is that they both have that same R sound. I have also come across several cognates such the French fenetre and the German fenster, both meaning window. And that's just with my very little French and practically no German. I'm sure there are many other common features. Historically this can be explained by the presence of Germanic tribes in modern day France.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Alas Oscuras Diglot Newbie Mexico Joined 6860 days ago 38 posts - 38 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: French, Japanese | Message 6 of 22 28 June 2006 at 7:44pm | IP Logged |
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I did a bit of research and the Lusitani had a Celtic culture, and
seem to have been a mayor population in today's Portugal territory. Cantabria, Asturias and Galicia to the north and northwest of Iberia remained free of the Roman control for the longest time of all peoples of Iberia, and they seem to have been mainly Celtic, in a different way than that of the Mediterranean coast, where there were the Iberians. But so, their culture probably was kept longer, preserved, and closer to the older forms, and it's worth to notice that the regions I mentioned above included in those days part of the actual territory of Portugal. So, it seems more clear that precisely in the territory where Portuguese developed, a main underlaying culture was the Celtic, as in Gaul. To the north of Iberia too, where Castillian developed, though it could have been more mingled, the culture (and language), with the Mediterranean ones. But it's to notice that old Castillian resembled more Portuguese, phonetically, than it does today. A lot of "sh" sounds. So, what I meant for "accent" was precisely how you speak something, the same language, in a different way from other zone's people. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Guanche Hexaglot Senior Member Spain danielmarin.blogspot Joined 7046 days ago 168 posts - 178 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanC1, RussianB1, French, Japanese Studies: Greek, Mandarin, Arabic (Written) | Message 7 of 22 29 June 2006 at 12:54pm | IP Logged |
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Bear in mind that Celtic languages were not the only languages spoken in the Iberian Peninsula when the Romans arrived. There were many other tongues, and lots of them were non-Indoeuropean, just like the Basque language.
Moreover, the Germanic tribes that invaded the Iberian Peninsula at the end of the Roman Empire, like the Suevi and Visigoths, were a minority compared to the Roman population they ruled over, so we have to be careful when talking about language influence. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Alas Oscuras Diglot Newbie Mexico Joined 6860 days ago 38 posts - 38 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: French, Japanese | Message 8 of 22 29 June 2006 at 2:30pm | IP Logged |
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Yes, that's true, then as now, a lot of tongues were spoken. But the
point is that in the zone I'm focusing in, the predominant culture seems to have been Celtic. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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