Is it correct to say "French stems from Latin"?

Answer 1

Yes, and English stems from French. Wait, what do you mean by stems?!

Answer 2

Yes, indeed. The language does appear to have some Gallic or Celtic underpinnings e.g brisser (to break) - Irish brisim; boue (mud) - Welsh bawa; petit (small) - Welsh peth "thing" etc. - however, overall, most of the lexicon and vocabulary of French are quite Latin.

For example "a strong winter storm" in French is Une forte tempête hivernale. In Latin you could say Fortis tempesta hibernalis which is very similar.

Romance linguists have noticed that French, in some respects, is even closer to Ciceronian Latin than Spanish and Italian are. The theory is that in Gaul, during the Roman period, Latin was primarily the language of an aristocratic ruling elite. The common people spoke Celtic for quite some time.

In Spain and Italy, however, Latin was also the language of the common people as well as the ruling classes. So popular forms of speech influenced Latin in Spain and Italy in ways that it didn't in Gaul (France).

The Frankish (Low German) influences on French are relatively slight and compare more with the Celtic influences.

Linguists usually call the Celtic influences on French a "substratum," since the Celts were the native population and the Frankish influences a "superstratum."

Nevertheless, substrata and superstrata aside, French has still retained a high degree of its orignal Latin character.

(Celtic was still spoken in the province of Auvergne as late as the 7th century and is still spoken in Bretagne (Brittany) in the northwest corner of the country. )

Answer 3

yes, "french stems from latin" is accurate....but english doesn't "stem from" french OR latin; it is originally rooted in Germanic languages, though it took on a boatload of latin in the middle ages (mostly from the church's influence) and french when the normans took hold.

Answer 4

Pretty much, yes. What today is France used to be Gaul, a Celtic area. When the Romans invaded Gaul, not many Gaulish (Celtic) words survived, but Latin was probably assimilated and pronounced as the Gauls pronounced words.
That's why many scientists think that there must have been nasal sounds in the Gauls' language.

Answer 5

French is a romance language, which means it does have it's roots in latin, like Italian and Spanish, if that is what you mean.

Answer 6

Yes, because you used the term 'stem' and that suggests a shoot prior in time from which something develops. I wouldn't say English stems from anything because it has multiple independent sources.

Answer 7

yes....latin is one of the oldest languages and you will find it became the basis for many other languages including spanish, english and some french.