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Why is French using those latines? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Surtalnar Tetraglot Groupie Germany Joined 4397 days ago 52 posts - 67 votes  Speaks: German*, Latin, English, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), Arabic (classical) | Message 1 of 10 15 May 2013 at 12:26am | IP Logged | ||
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Why is French using latinates instead of forms of it's own vocabulary in the case of adjectives, adverbs and nominalisations.
Here are some examples: étoile => stellaire instead of étoilaire fenêtre => défenestration instead of défenêtration air => aéroport instead of airport église => ecclésiastique instead of églistique Wouldn't the French words sound more natural? How does "étoilaire" sound to a native speaker of French? Edited by Surtalnar on 15 May 2013 at 12:32am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5600 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 2 of 10 15 May 2013 at 2:40am | IP Logged | ||
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French has a double layer of words which are derived from Latin:
a) Words of the common tongue which changed during 1500 years from vulgar Latin to French b) Words reloaned from Latin in modern times, called mot savants. The latter are used for more scentific, intellectual and posh expressions, the first one are used for basic utterances and concepts. English has something similar with animals: cat = feline dog = canine cow = bovine wolf = lupine étoilaire would be like cattish or cowish. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4669 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 3 of 10 15 May 2013 at 4:42am | IP Logged | ||
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The same thing happens in Spanish and Portuguese:
consoante (noun) ---> consonantal (adjective) vogal (noun) ---> vocálico (adjective) lágrima (noun) ---> lacrimal (adjective) lua (noun) --> lunar (adjective) boi (noun) --> bovino (adjective) porco (noun) ---> suíno (adjective) cabra (noun) ---> caprino (adjective) It's because the adjective is taken from Latin, and is not derivative of the simplified new-Romance form. Edited by Medulin on 15 May 2013 at 4:45am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| agantik Triglot Senior Member France Joined 4636 days ago 217 posts - 335 votes Speaks: French*, English, Italian Studies: German, Norwegian | Message 4 of 10 15 May 2013 at 6:04am | IP Logged | ||
Fenêtre used to be spelt fenestre (in Old French) as the accent on the e proves. It is the case for quite a number of words in French : hospital => hôpital , maistre => maître. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4275 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 5 of 10 15 May 2013 at 9:06am | IP Logged | ||
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In some (infrequent) cases, words belonging to the "second layer" have also become
mainstream, they no longer are "mots savants", which created interesting duplicates with related but different meanings: e.g. "frêle" (coming from vulgar latin) and "fragile" (borrowed later from classical latin). Edited by lorinth on 15 May 2013 at 9:07am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 6 of 10 15 May 2013 at 12:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think it is the same as English and its second layer of words borrowed from French. And
another step in the chain (or in some cases a circle) are other languages borrowing the borrowed words from English as their second layer. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lecavaleur Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4778 days ago 146 posts - 295 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish | Message 7 of 10 16 May 2013 at 5:06am | IP Logged | ||
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As for your question about how a word like "étoilaire" or "églistique" sound in French,
to me they sound a bit like something someone might say if they didn't know the word "stellaire" or "ecclésiastique", so I guess it sounds somewhat ignorant. If someone said something like that to me, I would either take it as a sign that they honestly didn't know the real word or that they were simply making a joke or play on words. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4679 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German | Message 8 of 10 16 May 2013 at 5:15pm | IP Logged | ||
I tend to agree, but I believe a person not knowing such words would be very unlikely to even discuss a topic in which they occur. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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