English as Fusion of French and Anglic

[KathTheDragon]

So, I was chatting with someone I know, and our conversation ended up with him claiming that English is a fusion of Norman French and Late Anglic. The example of why he is right I asked him to give was to do with word order - which I promptly demonstrated to be wrong by citing Old English word order. He then went on to claim that 'most linguists' would agree with him. So, naturally, you being linguists (of some sort), what are your opinions on the matter?

[Travis B.]

The obvious answer is that this is a load of shit. If one looks at Middle English, well after the Norman Conquest, it looks like yet another Germanic language, even with its cases and genders being relatively worn-down by that point, with its set of Romance loans being really no greater than those in most other Germanic languages by the present. It must be pointed out that much of the loans from Romance into English had not even happened yet, occurring only later in the Early Modern English period.

[zompist]

He's wrong. Extensive borrowings don't change language family; for that matter, when you get to inflections and grammatical words (prepositions, pronouns, numbers, conjunctions, particles) it's pretty damn Germanic.

English isn't even much of an outlier if you look at other coastal Germanic languages. If you're interested, track down Thomason & Kaufman's Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics are read the extended case study on English.

[gmalivuk]

The Google Books preview seems to include the Anglo-Norman part of that case study.

[Radius Solis]

"Most linguists" would tell him to quit making shit up and claiming they'd agree.

You're welcome to tell him we have borrowed lots and lots of words from French, since we have.

[KathTheDragon]

I did acknowledge that.

[Salmoneus]

He's right, and everyone else is over-reacting.

He didn't (as quoted, at least) say that English was a creole, or a pidgin, or that English had stopped being a Germanic language because of the French contact, or that Anglic and French were equally responsible for English. He'd be unlikely to say any of those things, because let's be honest that's all pretty meaningless to a layman anyway.

But what he (is quoted as having) said is true: English is the result of a fusion of Norman French and 'Late Anglic' (if that means ' Old English'). If nothing else, a huge part of the vocabulary is from Norman French, or via Norman French. [And note, 'Norman French' doesn't just mean the Conquest. Anglo-Norman French continued to be a highly influential superstrate all the way through Middle English]

[Shm Jay]

No, if one won't use the standard and agreed-upon terminology one doesn't deserve credit even if the idea is the same when translated into standard terminology. Points are not only deducted, but altogether nullified for being a special snowflake. So this makes him wrong. What on earth is "Late Anglic" supposed to be, anyway? Is it something like that Oro/Vulvo/Phallo/Ano-Romance that that guy used to go on about here?

[ol bofosh]

I get a feeling that French and Latin have hugely interfered with English, which isn't the same as "fusión" I think (isn't there slightly more a case for a fusion between OE and ON?). Before understanding Spanish I could pick out more written words from French or Spanish than German, Dutch or other. This could lead to the misconception that we're speaking a "fusión" language.

[zompist]

If the dude had said "a huge part of the vocabulary is from French", he'd be right. But he didn't, and he went on to claim the approval of "linguists". He was bullshitting and KathAveara was right to be suspicious.

[ol bofosh]

Right, bullshit. Which isn't French.

[Legion]

English has no more French and Latin vocabulary than many other European languages did until they underwent massive movements of renativisation. German only looks "so much more germanic" than English because they've consciously replaced numerous greco-latin compounds with germanic calques.

Borrowing massively from French and Latin was not something unique to English, it was the normal thing to do during the Renaissance and Enlightenment. And indeed, the anglo-norman base is *not* the majority of borrowed French words into English.

[KathTheDragon]

He did claim that we borrowed half our grammar from Old French as well.

[Legion]

There aren't much similarities between French and English grammar that cannot be attributed either to their common IE origin or more locally to them being SAE languages (in the later cases, those similarities will be found in other neighbouring languages like German or Spanish).

The only specific similarity I can think of is that both French and English both had V2 word order then subsequently lost it, resulting in a number of similar idiosyncracies —but Old French being V2 in the first place is a case of Germanic influence on French rather than the opposite.

From a phonological and grammatical point of view, there is much more Germanic influence on French than there is Romance influence on English.

[Basilius]

He did claim that we borrowed half our grammar from Old French as well.

The exact opposite statement makes more sense, for me. Like, there's no single bit in English grammar that is unquestionably due to specifically French influence. The biggest impact on grammar was actually from (1) Scandinavian and (2) Latin.

Also, I second recommending Thomason & Kaufman.

[Ser]

He did claim that we borrowed half our grammar from Old French as well.

The exact opposite statement makes more sense, for me. Like, there's no single bit in English grammar that is unquestionably due to specifically French influence. The biggest impact on grammar was actually from (1) Scandinavian and (2) Latin.

I think the loss of noun phrase discontinuity for split coordination at the end of a sentence is often attributed to French influence though. Split coordination as in:

• Se de god lufad & men, he hylt ealle godes bec. (Alaric's Homilies, II.300.26)
  'Whoever loves God and men remains faithful to the book of everything good.'
  (Literally, "He that God loves and men, he remains faithful to the book of all
  good

[Rhetorica]

Right, bullshit. Which isn't French.

No, in French you say foutaise or connerie, although merde de vachê is gaining some traction (unlike merde de taureau, which remains the sole purview of fancy-talkin' Americans.)

[hwhatting]

merde de vachê is

Merde de quoi?

[Hallow XIII]

mais ce circonflex il fout quoi là

[Rhetorica]

merde de vachê is

Merde de quoi?

I could've sworn there was a circumflex there... sigh. I guess my third-grade French teacher was Belgian or something.

[Hallow XIII]

Protip: Accents don't go on silent vowels.

[Drydic]

Protip: Accents don't go on silent vowels.

Challenge accepted.

[Ser]

Protip: Accents don't go on silent vowels.

Wrong: the feminine of <aigu> /Egy/ is <aiguë> /Egy/.

[Hallow XIII]

The diaeresis is a polygraph disambiguator, not an accent, and its purpose is to break up the trigraph <gue> /ɡ(ə)/ - in other words, ensuring that the /y/ is not read as silent.

NE: also, for what it's worth, "La réforme orthographique de 1990 recommande de placer le tréma sur le u des formes au féminin pour préciser qu’il se prononce. → voir aigüe et aigües"

not my fault if the French can't keep up with their own rules

[Ser]

The diaeresis is a polygraph disambiguator, not an accent,

That's a distinction I can't be arsed to make, I'm afraid. What the flying fuck is a polygraph disambiguator anyway? A machine that helps correct the results of a lie detector?

NE: also, for what it's worth, "La réforme orthographique de 1990 recommande de placer le tréma sur le u des formes au féminin pour préciser qu’il se prononce. → voir aigüe et aigües"

not my fault if the French can't keep up with their own rules

No, it's that the French Academy has long lost any authority, even on matters of spelling (people follow the Petit Larousse anyway).