I'd check out some of Arend Quak's publications on Frankish. He's analysed the language of the glosses to the Salic law and its different from both Old Low Franconian and High Franconian in several ways.
thanks for the article. But I'm not sure that I would assume that military conquest would lead to linguistic dominance. Except in Britain, Romance languages dominated Western Europe even after the decline of the empire and domination by other, non-Latin speaking leaders. Conversely, while descendants of Latin "won" in Western Europe, Latin never pushed out Greek in the Eastern Mediterranean. Or you can think about the continued use of Aramaic even after the rise of the Persian empire.
Definitely — the relationship between military conquest and language shift is not straightforward. I think the Franks are a great example of just how counterintuitive it can be. PS I look forward to seeing you in person next month!
Thanks, Colin, for an interesting article. I agree that French is the "weird"est of the Romance languages. I have real trouble connecting it to Latin. I would be interested in a premium tier.
Thanks, Jack! Have you ever checked out Old French? In some ways it's easier to relate to Latin but in other ways it's got a lot more Germanic in it. Either way, a fun read! Hoping to launch the premium tier this summer — thank you for your support and I'll keep you posted!
Romanian is definitely the weirdest romance language, not France, with Slavic influence and keeping many quirks of Latin that everyone else dropped like noun declension
I am quite happy that the Frankish language did not get more exposure. Apparently it gave rise to Dutch which is one of the ugliest sounding languages ever. Frankish probab was not so easy on the ear either
It's true that French is more Germanic in word order, grammar, and phonology than other Latin languages, because of Frankish influence. (Note that Romanian has more non-Latin vocabulary.) About the use of impersonal "on": other modern Romance languages do use forms of “on” in ways that are somewhat analogous to French. What's different about French is the substitution of "on" for "nous", but that change happened in the times of Middle French.
I'd check out some of Arend Quak's publications on Frankish. He's analysed the language of the glosses to the Salic law and its different from both Old Low Franconian and High Franconian in several ways.
Look forward to checking it out!
thanks for the article. But I'm not sure that I would assume that military conquest would lead to linguistic dominance. Except in Britain, Romance languages dominated Western Europe even after the decline of the empire and domination by other, non-Latin speaking leaders. Conversely, while descendants of Latin "won" in Western Europe, Latin never pushed out Greek in the Eastern Mediterranean. Or you can think about the continued use of Aramaic even after the rise of the Persian empire.
Definitely — the relationship between military conquest and language shift is not straightforward. I think the Franks are a great example of just how counterintuitive it can be. PS I look forward to seeing you in person next month!
I reckoned I knew something about the history of Germanic languages, but it seems that I knew very little about Frankish. Great piece!
Thank you, Mike!
Thanks, Colin, for an interesting article. I agree that French is the "weird"est of the Romance languages. I have real trouble connecting it to Latin. I would be interested in a premium tier.
Thanks, Jack! Have you ever checked out Old French? In some ways it's easier to relate to Latin but in other ways it's got a lot more Germanic in it. Either way, a fun read! Hoping to launch the premium tier this summer — thank you for your support and I'll keep you posted!
Old French? Sounds interesting. How should I start?
Romanian is definitely the weirdest romance language, not France, with Slavic influence and keeping many quirks of Latin that everyone else dropped like noun declension
I am quite happy that the Frankish language did not get more exposure. Apparently it gave rise to Dutch which is one of the ugliest sounding languages ever. Frankish probab was not so easy on the ear either
It's true that French is more Germanic in word order, grammar, and phonology than other Latin languages, because of Frankish influence. (Note that Romanian has more non-Latin vocabulary.) About the use of impersonal "on": other modern Romance languages do use forms of “on” in ways that are somewhat analogous to French. What's different about French is the substitution of "on" for "nous", but that change happened in the times of Middle French.