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Has French changed much since Napoleon? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| aaengel Newbie United States Joined 6143 days ago 18 posts - 18 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Greek, French | Message 1 of 14 03 April 2008 at 1:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Since Napoleon's exile, and death, has French changed much? Would there be anything wrong with using French vocabulary and Grammar books from the 1800's? I was just wondering because I heard that when Napoleon was in power, he created this group that was to keep french static. I understand newer words won't be in there, but would older grammar books be ok?
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| Makrasiroutioun Quadrilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Canada infowars.com Joined 6106 days ago 210 posts - 236 votes  Speaks: French*, English*, Armenian*, Romanian*, Latin, German, Italian Studies: Dutch, Swedish, Turkish, Japanese, Russian, Arabic (Written) | Message 2 of 14 03 April 2008 at 1:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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French changed remarkably little in its written form since the 17th century. Any educated French speaker can easily read Molière or any of the great playwrights and philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries (Montesquieu and Descartes included, in their original). The phonology changed quite a bit in most areas of France, and since Napoleon's time, there has been a large influx of loanwords and some grammatical simplification.
It would be fine to use such an old grammar book, provided that you can understand it. There are always much more modern and reader-friendly grammars! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Alkeides Senior Member Bhutan Joined 6148 days ago 636 posts - 644 votes | Message 3 of 14 03 April 2008 at 1:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Descartes wrote in Latin :).
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| Topsiderunner Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6918 days ago 215 posts - 218 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Arabic (Written) | Message 5 of 14 03 April 2008 at 2:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Just to note, Google Books has a goldmine of fully downloadable French books from the 1800s and early 1900s that are now in the public domain, so feel free to peruse them.
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| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7376 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 14 03 April 2008 at 2:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Please post your discussions in the right room. I had to move this and some other of your threads to the correct rooms and have better things to do. Edited by administrator on 03 April 2008 at 2:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ra Diglot Newbie Norway Joined 6139 days ago 14 posts - 19 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: German, French | Message 7 of 14 07 April 2008 at 5:11am | IP Logged | |||||
For the most part, yes. But he did write his Discours de la méthode (and the appendix La Géométrie) and Les passions de l`âme in French. Also, his Principia philosophiae (but probably not his Meditationes de prima philosophia (although translated during his lifetime)) was translated under his supervision. Edited by Ra on 07 April 2008 at 5:18am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6665 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 8 of 14 07 April 2008 at 5:36am | IP Logged | |||||
A friend of mine who is a historian told me that Descartes is in fact one of the first who wrote in French and that he contributed significantly to the increased use of French in the sciences. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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