Arabic - Proof of it Being the Original Language

[Magic Man]

That's true of the people we call French today, but not of the people they called French back then. The word French is derived from the OE word frencisc ('Frankish'), which referred just to the Franks. And the Franks began to appear under that name in Roman histories back when they were still on the east side of the Rhine.

English of course refers to the Angles, and the Angles were called that by Tacitus way back when they were still just in Angeln.

Of course the current pronunciations were not in use, but their earlier forms were. But back then, they referred only to their specific Germanic tribes. Over time, they have come to refer to more people than they originally referred to, but back in the 11th century, I think they generally referred just to the Germanic tribes.

I don't think we disagree on the idea that Angli and Franci referred, at one time, to just the Angles and the Franks, and that these folks were still in lands that today are in Germany. I also don't think we disagree that, today, English and French refer to lots of people who aren't necessarily descendants of the Angles and the Franks. And I don't think we disagree that the two sets of words are essentially the same words at different stage of progression. Tell me if I'm wrong about any of that.

I think our disagreement is on when the words shifted from referring to just the two Germanic tribes to referring to a wider group of culturally related people.

I think that shift might have happened for the word English fairly early — before the Conquest. But I don't think it happened with the word French until closer to the Hundred Years' War.

I'd say it's more that, even at the time of the conquest, that area was called, basically, Land of the Franks. The Normans weren't, of course, Franks, but they were in the Land of the Franks, and spoke the language of the Franks. They could have been distinguished as Normans, yes, but, frankly D), they were still part of the Frankish kingdom.

Anyway, the point of my comment was just that I don't think it's truthful to call the Normans "not French". As we use the term "French", I would say that they are exactly that.

And I don't think that use of the word came about until closer to Louis XIV's time, and maybe not even then.

That's fine, but, as we use the word, they were French.

It had some impressive effects on the lexicon, including giving us very common terms in semantic fields like kinship, food, and so forth. But most of our Latinate vocabulary didn't come from the Normans, but from a longstanding tradition of borrowing Latin words for technical terminology (and, later, general purpose technology to sound more educated), and that tradition goes back to before the Conquest. And outside the lexicon, it had no effect at all.

I don't question that the Conquest had a pretty big impact on English, but I think most of the impact we tend to attribute to the Normans is actually a continuation of trends that were in English before the Conquest.

Well, on this we disagree, then. It wasn't just words that came into English through French, but styles and grammar points. Obviously Latin had a big impact on English, too, but so did French. I think French did more than you give it credit for.

 

[kai]

i just cant sleep until i know the French did not invade these islands , its becoming an obsession" I am not French" "i am not french"

A common misconception today is that the Normans were "French." Strictly speaking this is not true although it is a widely held belief and, like most beliefs, has some basis in fact.

History | The Normans | Who Were The Normans? A short history

 

[Magic Man]

i just cant sleep until i know the French did not invade these islands , its becoming an obsession" I am not French" "i am not french"

A common misconception today is that the Normans were "French." Strictly speaking this is not true although it is a widely held belief and, like most beliefs, has some basis in fact.

History | The Normans | Who Were The Normans? A short history

I think your problem is that you have a problem with the French today, and you're projecting that to back then. You're thinking is that you don't want to have been conquered by "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" as Willy from the Simpsons put it so eloquently. All of the French came from elsewhere, and all were at one time warrior tribes. Being conquered by the French back then is no shameful thing. The Normans were French, albeit a little different from the Franks. They have become the definition of the modern word French as much as the Franks have. They brought the French language to England in the conquest, and an allegiance to France (as it was back then).

You can differentiate to help yourself sleep at night, but the Normans were as French as the Franks by the time of the conquest. But, yes, you are not French.

 

[Darkwater]

So why have French as the royal language of your court for 400 years after the Norman invasion,followed by pretentious latin(originally based on the very ancient Inglis)before the birth of modern English.

I have tried to exhibit that Roman's were Celts,all Germanic tribe celts,all Nordic tribes Celts...Celts is just like saying Caucasian.

Franks & Gauls sounds similar yet different to Scots & Gaels.....Except Scots spoke Inglis,Franks something different.

Periods of occupation never did any occupied country any favours,Boudicca(Parisi tribe,Yorkshire?)(don't call her by her roman name) & her people fleeing to Caledonia or Alba,only to return after the Roman left beong more significant.

So you are not a pasta basher either Kai....You dwell in the Civic State that is England,so this is your civic nation.If you are born there it is also your birth nation,ethnecissity is neither here nor there in the civic state.Better than that your passport tells you you are a Brit

If you went anywhere in the world they would identify you as English or English/British as I am a Scot/Brit.

 

[kai]

I think your problem is that you have a problem with the French today, and you're projecting that to back then. You're thinking is that you don't want to have been conquered by "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" as Willy from the Simpsons put it so eloquently. All of the French came from elsewhere, and all were at one time warrior tribes. Being conquered by the French back then is no shameful thing. The Normans were French, albeit a little different from the Franks. They have become the definition of the modern word French as much as the Franks have. They brought the French language to England in the conquest, and an allegiance to France (as it was back then).

You can differentiate to help yourself sleep at night, but the Normans were as French as the Franks by the time of the conquest. But, yes, you are not French.

ah merci! merci! mball i can rest easy from my dreams of consuming vast quantities of garlic smothered snails, but at the time of the conquest they had only been in France 100 years or so.


Rollo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




Feeling threatened by the increase in Norman power resulting from William's noble marriage, Henry I attempted to invade Normandy twice (1054 and 1057), without success. Already a charismatic leader, William attracted strong support within Normandy, including the loyalty of his half-brothers Odo of Bayeux and Robert, Count of Mortain, who played significant roles in his life. Later, he benefitted from the weakening of two competing power centers as a result of the deaths of Henry I and of Geoffrey II of Anjou, in 1060. In 1062 William invaded and took control of the county of Maine, which had been a fief of Anjou.[5]


William I of England - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Magic Man]

ah merci! merci! mball i can rest easy from my dreams of consuming vast quantities of garlic smothered snails, but at the time of the conquest they had only been in France 100 years or so.

A lot can happen in 100 years. Just look at the world today and the world in 1908. That's five generations of intermingling with the French already living in the area. Of course, it was more like 150 years, which makes them even more French. Remember, I'm not denying that they were different than the Franks. They were still French, though, by our standards.

Besides, as I said before, the comment that originally brought this on was about French coming to England because the Normans were French. In that context, they were French. They did being the French language to England, and they came from France, so the original comment works.

 

[Darkwater]

If England was a civic nation instead of 7 warring nations,you could claim that he was a civic Englishman & maybe king of all England.As it was he spoke French,French being the royal language of the English Court for 400 years(maybe more) after William 1st(of England,William 2nd of Normandy) seized power.

More of a French King than Inglisch?more of a French/Viking Principality than a proper kingdom.Dosen't do the language thing any favours whatsoever.

Upon the hugely successful Scottish Canmore line dying out,at least Robert Du Bois(The Brus/Bruce) had the good grace to be King of Scots(the people,not the land(feudal)( ),talk the royal language of the Scots,our mither tongue(Inglis),be the last Gaelic speaking Scottish monarch(his granny was a gael) & be good pals with his trusty leiftenant the Scot
Gud schir Jamess off Douglass(dhubb glass-Gaelic for -darkwater/bloodriver/Blackpool heh heh heh)

God bless the pope (of Avignon)

 

[Worshipper]

Anyway, the point of my comment was just that I don't think it's truthful to call the Normans "not French". As we use the term "French", I would say that they are exactly that.

Okay, I'll accept that. As we use the word "French" today, people like the Normans would be considered French. If one of us were to go back in time 950 years, we'd look at the Normans and call them French. Shoot, we look at Nicolas Sarkozy and unquestioningly accept him as French — why wouldn't we accept the Normans?

So if that's the point of your comment, then I think we've found agreement and conclusion on this.

Well, on this we disagree, then. It wasn't just words that came into English through French, but styles and grammar points. Obviously Latin had a big impact on English, too, but so did French. I think French did more than you give it credit for.

Style, maybe. We have certainly borrowed French style. But Chaucer did a lot of conscious borrowing of French style a full 300 years after the Conquest. Before Chaucer's time, the style of Middle English was fairly continuous with the style of Old English. Chaucer explicitly sought to change that.

Would Chaucer have looked to a French model for style if it were not for the Conquest? Maybe not. The Conquest did pull us away from the North Sea culture we had focussed on and into the Atlantic culture that has become our focus since. We might not have cared about French style without the Conquest.

But the style Chaucer wasn't even in French at the time of the Normans. It was adopted later on from the style of Arabic in Spain and Sicily (strangely curving this tangent back toward the OP). So the French style Chaucer adopted was really from Arabic to begin with. At the time of the Conquest, French style (and even Spanish style) were more consistent with the traditional style of the Germanic tribes that had come to rule in those places — and therefore more consistent with the style of Old English.

As for grammar, exactly what points of grammar would you say came into English through French? I can think of none.

 

[Magic Man]

Okay, I'll accept that. As we use the word "French" today, people like the Normans would be considered French. If one of us were to go back in time 950 years, we'd look at the Normans and call them French. Shoot, we look at Nicolas Sarkozy and unquestioningly accept him as French — why wouldn't we accept the Normans?

So if that's the point of your comment, then I think we've found agreement and conclusion on this.

Cool.

Style, maybe. We have certainly borrowed French style. But Chaucer did a lot of conscious borrowing of French style a full 300 years after the Conquest. Before Chaucer's time, the style of Middle English was fairly continuous with the style of Old English. Chaucer explicitly sought to change that.

Would Chaucer have looked to a French model for style if it were not for the Conquest? Maybe not. The Conquest did pull us away from the North Sea culture we had focussed on and into the Atlantic culture that has become our focus since. We might not have cared about French style without the Conquest.

But the style Chaucer wasn't even in French at the time of the Normans. It was adopted later on from the style of Arabic in Spain and Sicily (strangely curving this tangent back toward the OP). So the French style Chaucer adopted was really from Arabic to begin with. At the time of the Conquest, French style (and even Spanish style) were more consistent with the traditional style of the Germanic tribes that had come to rule in those places — and therefore more consistent with the style of Old English.

As for grammar, exactly what points of grammar would you say came into English through French? I can think of none.

I can't think of any specifics off the top of my head. I'll try to come up with some, but I think this part of the debate is pretty well finished, too. Maybe we just disagree on what constitutes "a large influence". Maybe we should just agree that the Norman invasion started the French influence on English, regardless of how big an impact it had.

 

[Riverwolf]

Wow... this thread has gotten WAAAAAAY off topic. But I guess I'm to blame for my inquiries...

 

[Worshipper]

Maybe we just disagree on what constitutes "a large influence". Maybe we should just agree that the Norman invasion started the French influence on English, regardless of how big an impact it had.

Could be that we agree on the extent of the influence and just not on whether it should bear the arbitrary label "large". And arguing about arbitrary stuff is kind of dumb.

I would probably agree the the Conquest started the main body of French influence. There was some prior French influence, but nothing like what followed the Conquest.

As long as we limit it to French influence, no problem. But the French influence was a relatively small portion of the overall Latinate influence. And that influence began while the English were still on the Continent. Most of the Latinate-ness of English is a result of borrowing directly from Latin in a continuous trend that goes back to the times of the Roman Empire. With or without the Norman Conquest and its French influence, we would have a lot of Latin influence on English in terms of our lexicon.

Wow... this thread has gotten WAAAAAAY off topic. But I guess I'm to blame for my inquiries...

Well, in all fairness, I did mention the Arabic influence on the literary style of the western European languages!

 

[kai]

Maybe we should just agree that the Norman invasion started the French influence on English, regardless of how big an impact it had.

you could turn that around to the Norman invasion started the English influence on the French, it certainly started hundreds of years of hostility, and my final comment is if you go back 950 years would william and the Normans be considered French by Henry and the rest of the french.


but we wander far

 

[Darkwater]

What is now considered French borrowed from Inglis and vice versa as both were forming thousands of years ago.

You talk about races of people as though they just beamed down in a spaceship in the year 1066,maybe a symptom of waking up late.

 

[kai]

What is now considered French borrowed from Inglis and vice versa as both were forming thousands of years ago.

You talk about races of people as though they just beamed down in a spaceship in the year 1066,maybe a symptom of waking up late.

ah i am afraid i am something of an insomniac and i rise in the wee small hours my friend, and i am sure you ken my meaning

 

[Darkwater]

The Parisi Tribe were a small part of the Celtic Brigante,they were Yorkshire based for some time.

I have a particular problem with all allegedly *French* words *re-introduced* & *defined* by Oxford chaps in the 17c,one in particular causes a lot of confusion as it is remarkably poorly defined & this stupid reintroduced definition forms the basis of a criminal offence in Scotland.

How many words are allegedly taken from the french,I will show you the mither tongue Inglis definition & context.......I will prove this too you.Unless you don't want me too.

 

[kai]

The Parisi Tribe were a small part of the Celtic Brigante,they were Yorkshire based for some time.

I have a particular problem with all allegedly *French* words *re-introduced* & *defined* by Oxford chaps in the 17c,one in particular causes a lot of confusion as it is remarkably poorly defined & this stupid reintroduced definition forms the basis of a criminal offence in Scotland.

How many words are allegedly taken from the french,I will show you the mither tongue Inglis definition & context.......I will prove this too you.Unless you don't want me too.

as far as i am concerned please do! but remember this is Tariqs thread and we have veered considerably off course.

 

[tariqkhwaja]

as far as i am concerned please do! but remember this is Tariqs thread and we have veered considerably off course.

Considerably considerably.

Tariq is celebrating Eid in a place where the internet is pretty slow.

As a preview for starters I am going to start with one word. Arabic has several synonyms for the verb "run". I am going to show how similar these synonyms sound with the word for run is various languages of the world. It is not proof but evidence. And slowly I will pile up such evidence in this thread.

Hopefully, concluding that Arabic is that missing link between all the languages of the world.

 

[Darkwater]

Maybe stumble upon some old Arabic...a seperate thread for each word....I have two allegedly *from thefrench* which are very firmly rooted in ancient Inglis...If you can produce any others I shall try & prove them to the best of my ability.

Good Man!

Cool Tariq,just read your post & looking forward to this.......

 

[Magic Man]

Considerably considerably.

Tariq is celebrating Eid in a place where the internet is pretty slow.

As a preview for starters I am going to start with one word. Arabic has several synonyms for the verb "run". I am going to show how similar these synonyms sound with the word for run is various languages of the world. It is not proof but evidence. And slowly I will pile up such evidence in this thread.

Hopefully, concluding that Arabic is that missing link between all the languages of the world.

That's fine, but how are you going to prove that the other languages got their words from Arabic, and not vice versa? You can show that three other languages have words for "run" similar to Arabic words for it, but, in that case, it could just as easily be that Arabic took its words from the other languages, rather than them taking the words form Arabic.

 

[Worshipper]

Tariq is celebrating Eid

Mumtaaz! Enjoy! Allah yabarak fiik!

As a preview for starters I am going to start with one word. Arabic has several synonyms for the verb "run". I am going to show how similar these synonyms sound with the word for run is various languages of the world.

Remember that it's not enough to show similarity. You have to also provide the derivations, showing how the words systematically evolved into their current forms in each of the other languages.

Similarities without demonstrable derivations could be the result of borrowing. A language spoken as widely as Arabic is bound to send a lot of loanwords into a lot of other languages. That doesn't make those languages derived from Arabic.