Glorification of conquest of peoples is what has us where we are today. Knock it off already.

/and you call yourselves progressive and civilized

William The Bastard.

RexTalionis: It will live on in the mouths of lawyers, what with Law French and all.

Voir Dire is pronounced "Voy Die-er" in the great state of Texas. Just like how the Normans spoke it, I'm sure.

Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of silly persons!

So it's just some dialect of French then? Not an actual distinct language?

cman: Norman French is a language that would die out and I would have no problem with it.

English was such a beautiful language prior to the conquest, now we have this bastard of a language that tries act cool by adding French and Latin.

BBbbut I was told that Kevin Costner sucked as Robin Hood because he didn't have an ENGLISH accent!?!?!

They want to preserve his language by calling him William instead of Guillaume le Conquérant? Sounds like it may be too late already.

Heh, the audio clip at the bottom just sounds like an old English lady mangling French.

I always assumed them frogs always spoke Froggish.

Tax Boy: RexTalionis: It will live on in the mouths of lawyers, what with Law French and all.

Voir Dire is pronounced "Voy Die-er" in the great state of Texas. Just like how the Normans spoke it, I'm sure.

When I was in France, I pronounced every French word I could exactly as it was spelled, in an exaggerated Texas accent. If they can't spell it like supposed to be spoken, then fark 'em.

Rent Party: I always assumed them frogs always spoke Froggish.

Ooooh, I like that. I'm taking that.
YOU THERE! QUIT IT WITH THE FROGGISH! OR I'LL SMITE YA!

Got a great ring to it.

Norman French, the language of kings and lords.

"Language in danger" my ass, more like "Language in danger of becoming a language again".

/amirite?

So do they fark with their faces on those islands?

Kar98: So it's just some dialect of French then? Not an actual distinct language?

isn't that what Creole is? that's just a bastard language then too, right?

TFA: In Jersey the endangered Norman dialect, known as Jersey French,

Allez fous se déchaînent
Faites la fête très fort
Si vous voulez vous amuser et faire quelque chose
Si vous voulez vous amuser et faire quelque chose

This is just an effort by the French to preserve some reminder of the last time they conquered something.

English, the bastard love hate child of France, Italy, Scandinavia and Germany with a little bit of Pict mixed in.

I am amazed finally something of interest in the Daily Fail.

Yaxe: English, the bastard love hate child of France, Italy, Scandinavia and Germany with a little bit of Pict mixed in.

Don't forget the Romans.

speeedracer: Kar98: So it's just some dialect of French then? Not an actual distinct language?

isn't that what Creole is? that's just a bastard language then too, right?

No, more like Valley Girl vs. Texas Drawl.

Rich Cream: Glorification of conquest of peoples is what has us where we are today. Knock it off already.

/and you call yourselves progressive and civilized

Hey, conquering is one of the few things you can do that ranks higher than "sheep-farker" when people give you a title.

Good luck recording his language, eggheads. I've been sitting by the tomb of William the Conquerer with a microphone for years. And all I ever get is the occasional "ooooOOOOOooo" and "cuuuuurrrssse".

Kar98: Yaxe: English, the bastard love hate child of France, Italy, Scandinavia and Germany with a little bit of Pict mixed in.

Don't forget the Romans.

Uh, he said Italy...

Jake Havechek: Norman French, the language of kings and lords.

More like GAYlords, amirite???

Why the race to record it? If they know it's dying out, they must have good enough records to distinguish it from whatever godforsaken language they speak in France.

Mike Chewbacca: Kar98: Yaxe: English, the bastard love hate child of France, Italy, Scandinavia and Germany with a little bit of Pict mixed in.

Don't forget the Romans.

Uh, he said Italy...

I took that to mean modern Italian words like alto, arsenal, balcony, broccoli, cameo, casino, cupola, duo, fresco, fugue, gazette, ghetto, gondola, grotto, macaroni, madrigal, motto, piano, opera, pantaloons, primadonna, regatta, sequin, soprano, opera, stanza, stucco, studio, tempo, torso, umbrella, viola, violin, as opposed to English words with roots in Old Latin, like butter, cheese, dish, pillar, pound sack, street, wall, wine.

Kar98: Yaxe: English, the bastard love hate child of France, Italy, Scandinavia and Germany with a little bit of Pict mixed in.

Don't forget the Romans.

Why not...what have the Romans ever done for us?

This article is silly. Channel Island French is no more closely related to the language of William the Conqueror than his language was related to that of Julius Caesar. One thousand years provides for a lot of linguistic evolution.

Yaxe: English, the bastard love hate child of France, Italy, Scandinavia and Germany with a little bit of Pict mixed in.

A collection of small furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with one of these? obscure?

speeedracer: Kar98: So it's just some dialect of French then? Not an actual distinct language?

isn't that what Creole is? that's just a bastard language then too, right?

Not quite. This was a dialect, which is essentially an off-branch of another language.

A Creole is different, being a mixture of two different languages, that usually only arises in situations where the population is forced to adapt parts of another language to communicate with each other, such as slaves in the Caribbean.

The more you know.

cman: English was such a beautiful language prior to the conquest, now we have this bastard of a language that tries act cool by adding French and Latin.

Sarcastic-like typing detected.

English before the conquest was a weird blend of Insular Celtic, Latin, Old North Sea Germanic and old Norse. As you traveled up the eastern coast, the dialect would become heavier with Old Eastern Norse (Danish). Then you'd run into Pictish, then you run into Old Western Norse (Norwegian, Icelandic) along the north coast of the island.

Dinjiin: cman: English was such a beautiful language prior to the conquest, now we have this bastard of a language that tries act cool by adding French and Latin.

Sarcastic-like typing detected.

English before the conquest was a weird blend of Insular Celtic, Latin, Old North Sea Germanic and old Norse. As you traveled up the eastern coast, the dialect would become heavier with Old Eastern Norse (Danish). Then you'd run into Pictish, then you run into Old Western Norse (Norwegian, Icelandic) along the north coast of the island.

[images58.fotki.com image 640x198]

This is true, but the influence of Norman changed English vocabulary and even grammar to a major extent that no other language has before or since. For example, there's few very few words and no grammar in English deriving from the Celtic languages. Adding loanwords from other languages aren't usually considered "blending" the two languages together, but in contrast, Norman really did blend into English to a major extent.

Need_MindBleach: A Creole is different, being a mixture of two different languages, that usually only arises in situations where the population is forced to adapt parts of another language to communicate with each other, such as slaves in the Caribbean.

Elaborating further, a pidgin is what arises when people of two different languages are forced to adapt in order to communicate with one another. It's ad hoc, and the point is solely to convey meaning, with little consideration of grammatical regularity.

Once kids are speaking a pidgin language as their first language, and it's agreed that there are clear and regular rules on how to correctly and incorrectly speak that language, then you have a creole language.

Need_MindBleach: For example, there's few very few words and no grammar in English deriving from the Celtic languages.

Do you really think this is the case? I do not believe you are correct in that conclusion.

Seriously, the weirdest thing about English, that we put the word "do" in all sorts of funky and unnecessary places, is a feature it shares only with the Celtic languages. It's likely something that the Angles and Saxons picked up from the Britons as their cultures intermingled, especially given that most of the invaders were likely men, and their children would thus be learning the language from their Celtic mothers.

The reason that Norman French seems like such a more profound influence on English is because of the nature of historical linguistics - we have to rely on written documentation, which would mainly represent the major shifts that the ruling class experienced. The changes in the common dialects would go much less noticed, simply because few people were writing them down, never mind noticing them as profound, society-altering events.

It used to be the normal state of affairs for grandparents and grandchildren to have trouble understanding one another at times, simply because spoken language, pronunciation and vocabulary had changed enough over the course of 30 to 50 years (never mind understanding what they spoke three towns over). The upper classes would notice linguistic changes more easily, because they spoke multiple languages and dialects (as everyone did), and in particular, dead languages like Latin or Norman French after the conquest.

The Norman Conquest seems to be such a big influence for another related reason: at this point, Anglo-Saxon (i.e. Old English) ceased to be a dead official language of scribes, similar to ecclesiastical Latin. By 1066, they were writing in a language that was essentially 500 years out of date, for the same reason Continental kings wrote in the Latin of Augustus' day, instead of the Latin of their own day (i.e. Castilian, Aragonese, Catalan, Galician, langue d'oc, langue d'oil, Provençal, Tuscan, Piedmontese, Lombard, Venetan, etc) - it provided a sense of historical continuity, and provided a universal lingua franca amongst a population that spoke often mutually unintelligible dialects.

By the time they started writing in (Middle) English again, they were jumping forward about 700 years in linguistic development, reflecting the influence of the Celts, Vikings and Normans upon the language. It just seemed like it was all the Normans' doing, given the timing.