how will be english language today without the french influence??

Question

we know,english language has a great linguistic history and influences from celts,romans,germanic tribes and french population.Without this last invasion,how it will be today according to you??thanks
(sorry for my english,i'm an italian student)

Answer 1

We would probably still be speaking an anglasised form of Latin

Answer 2

Its hard to believe that 'original' English would have remained pure over 1000 years, even isolated languages evolve; especially over such a time scale. Norman French, Latin etc. often added words rather than merely replaced them hence the vast amount of words in the English language...'Pork' didn't replace 'pig' or 'swine' of example, it became added as an description for cooked pig. The UK also has a huge amount of different accents & local dialects making the notion of a 'universal' or 'official' English a modern invention & still subject to change. A vast amount of English has its roots in the Anglo-Saxon original with French / Latin terms becoming Anglicised (or bastardised if your French!) The English language would probably be less rich & so less expressive, maybe more blunt & less descriptive, it's no accident maybe that where Italy & France are artistic, visual cultures the UK is a literary culture. It is after all the language of Shakespeare, Chaucer & The Sex Pistols...

Answer 3

Ciao! Interesting question. I imagine even if the Normans didn't invade and conquer England the English language would still have some Latin, French and Italian words because of the supremacy of Latin as a scientific language, French as a diplomatic language and Italian as a language of the Arts.
But if you want an idea of what English would look like today without the French influence see:

Anglish (Modern Anglo-Saxon):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglish
http://anglish.wikia.com/wiki/Headside
http://www.geocities.com/bajparry/Anglish.html

To be, or not to be: that is the ask-thing:
is't higher-thinking in the brain to bear
the slings and arrows of outrageous dooming
or to take weapons 'gainst a sea of bothers
and by againstwork end them?...

Churchill in his famous WW2: "we shall fight on the beaches" speech used only words of Anglo-Saxon origin except for the word 'surrender' from French which I imagine was intentional.

Answer 4

One can still write the English tongue without French words, as i am now doing. I think that the shift that happened where the way long a, e, i, o and u are said might not have been, so they would be said the way they are elsewhere in Europe. I would bet that it would be more like Dutch, but there would be more bits at the ends of words which become other than the way they are now, so it wouldn't be the way i'm writing it here but more like this:

One can yet writen the Englishe tunge without Frenche worden, as ic doe nu. Ic thinke that the scift that happenede hwere the utsayende thare bukstavene a, e, i, o and u aren nu isaid mayen not haven wesen, so that they weren isaid as they aren elsehwere in Europe. Ic rewaite that it were more like unto Dutche, ac there weren more bits at them enden wordene that wirden forsciden, so it were not the way that ic here write it, but more like unto thissen.

The other thing would be that it would still use eth, ash and thorn, which are no longer in our alphabet.

It is interesting to consider the manner in which our language would be inscribed had French obliterated English entirely.

Answer 5

for wulff2
norman were french

french people are a germanic people (the franks) and celtic people(the gauls) (some latins in the south)and speak a romance language
norman are from "ancestors" of vikings , but they mix themselves with franks people , and begun to spoke a dialect french
bretons people are from britons ancestors (celts)and still spoke their celts language
and are french and speak french as their first language , and if you say them who are you , they are going to say you "im french from britanny"

people of france , in each regions Have their own ancestors
so
you cant say that norman aren't french, if you say that , it's means that you say that
the real french are in paris and it's wrong
other people are french yes , but tHey actually didnt speak french in middle age but their own regional languages
sometimes it's a germanic or celtic language
or sometimes a latin in the south
or a french dialect
they used french like people of the world use english for understand other people

french become the official cause the king spoke french ect. . .






if french never influcences english
english wouldnt exist
english people would probably still speak
the language of the saxons and angles
the old-english , the anglo-saxon language


ow , romans
never
had very influcences in the english history
:) celts yes a litlle bit, germanic yes , french yes
:)
english would be like german , dutch ect
a very germanic language

Answer 6

Actually the Normans ( The last people to successfully invade England) were not French but of Norwegian Viking decent. As many Vikings were already well established in what became the United Kingdom the impact of Norman on the language was and is minimal

Answer 7

The chances are that we would be speaking a language with a more Germatic influence and the original Gealic phrass would be more common.

It should be remembered that French and the other Romance Languages are a form of market place pidgin Latin

Answer 8

english would be far poorer, the fact that the english language has been open to many sources has made it a rich and dynamic medium of communication, and don't apologise for your level of capacity in english it's probably better than 99 percent of the british populations grasp of italian

Answer 9

It would probably resemble the Frisian language spoken in the islands off the coast of Holland. It's said that Frisian most resembles English.

Answer 10

It would probably be more like Dutch and the Low German dialects, with some influence from Norse.

Answer 11

I would feel a certain ennui without French words in English. Some of them are a little passé now.

How would the French cope without le weekend, le car park, le t-shirt etc?