Re: Ethandune and Andunie

Larry Swain wrote:

Tux Wonder-Dog wrote:
Larry Swain wrote:


Tux Wonder-Dog wrote:

Larry Swain wrote:



Belba Grubb wrote:


Larry Swain wrote:


<snip>


Well, the same words were so well distributed that French, Romanian and
Spanish all use the same directional words, derived from either Old
Franconian - the Frankish language - or from Gothic dialects.

Hey Tux,
This is interesting. I knew about French and Spanish, who are believed
to have adopted the words from English in the early modern period, but
wasn't aware of the Romanian connection.....


Not from English. French was heavily influenced by Old Franconian, and
the Iberian/Hispanic languages by Visigothic, a dialect of the Gothic
language. But the Ostrogoths settled in a region not far from Dacia,
where the Romanians were, and so the Romanian for "West" is "vest" and
"East" is
"est" ... quite different to the Latin words. ;)

Well, I'd have to disagree. For one thing, French was not heavily
influenced by Old Franconian, though one would expect it to be. There
are very few French words even in Old French that come from the Germanic
word stock. As far as I know, always willing to be shown incorrect,
"oest" and "east" and the like do not appear in the Old French period.
I don't have an exhaustive Old French lexicon handy, but my hand
dictionary does not include them anyway, and I can find no trace of them
in the Old French texts I have to hand. (I also can not find these
words in what survives to us in Old Franconian).

Unfortunately I don't have any Old French lexicon full stop.

But there were at least three relatively large sets of Germanic peoples
moving into what is now France - the Franks, the Burgundians, and the
(under duress) the deported Saxons. Whereas there was only about three
hundred years for the English-speakers to have that sort of basic influence
on French - ergo I disbelieve.

Similarly, Spanish adopted few words from Gothic, the Visiogoths being
but a thin layer of administration at the top of society for about 250
years, a period in which they largely also intermarried with the native
population. It is an oddity of the period as well that it is the
Visiogothic kingdom that churns out the best, classicized Latin--Isidore
of Seville for example.

The Spanish differentiation between "ser" and "esser" - to be (existential)
and to be ((at this current moment) happen to mirror the Old English (as
preserved) quite satisfactorily. But the Visigoths never spoke Old English
- so there must be a different explanation - common substrates in
subservient populations?

For both of these and Portugese and Italian as well, it is not the
Germanic or Gothic spellings that have been adopted, but rather the
English. I. E. in Gothic east=austar, in Old NOrse austan, in O Saxon
osten, Old High German osten and so on....the fact that the forms in
French, Spanish, Portugese and Italian all look and sound like the
English form east rather than au- or o^ and the fact that so far as I
can trace the words only appear in these languages in the early modern
period suggests that the Romance languages borrowed the terms from
English, and did not derive them from an ancient Germanic word stock.

But what are the social circumstances for this sort of borrowing to occur?
Directional language is not fad-influenced.

IMHO, the question should be asked, what sort of influence did Norman French
have on Old English, to make the sound changes turn out the way they did in
English? What sort of sound changes occured in the Romance languages that
made the (presumed) Germanic originals sound like English?

I would think that the same would be true of Romanian, which as I
understand it (correct me if I'm wrong) also has few words from a
Germanic word stock, but borrowed nearly 25% of its vocabulary from
French and Italian, the latter that it is often mutually intelligible
with. Again, teh form you give suggests an English borrowing, perhaps
through Italian (where the spelling is the same) rather than deriving it
from Gothic austr.

One thing that might be worth pointing out in this context is that Romanian
has a suffixed definite article. This is true of Old Norse; it isn't true
of the Gothic language as we have it recorded. It isn't true of Latin,
either the Classical or the Vulgar, which doesn't have articles full stop.
Unfortunately we don't have very many traces of any substrate languages, so
it's not a definite sign of anything - to the best of my knowledge.

As far as I know, Romanian - like all other Romance languages - is capable
of borrowing from other Romance languages very easily.

Again, what sort of sound changes occured in Romanian? French? Italian?
Spanish? Portuguese?

I just don't think English was that important an influence on the likes of
the Romanian, Spanish, French language communities.

Wesley Parish
--
"Good, late in to more rewarding well."  "Well, you tonight.  And I was
lookintelligent woman of Ming home.  I trust you with a tender silence."  I
get a word into my hands, a different and unbelike, probably - 'she
fortunate fat woman', wrong word.  I think to me, I justupid.
Let not emacs meta-X dissociate-press write your romantic dialogs...!!!
.

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