# The Romance strata in English



## Ajura

What is the branch of Romance Languages is the Romance Strata in English?


----------



## Frank06

Ajura said:


> What is the branch of Romance Languages is the Romance Strata in English?


I am not sure if I understand the question. Can you please rephrase it?
Thanks.

Frank


----------



## berndf

Frank06 said:


> I am not sure if I understand the question. Can you please rephrase it?
> Thanks.
> 
> Frank


*I think* I understand: He wants to know which branch of the Romance Languages asserted the most influence on English. The answer to this would be: _Anglo-French _aka_ Norman French_ aka _Anglo-Norman_ belonging, together with _Modern French_, to the _Langues d'Oïl_, a sub-group of the _Gallo-Romance_ languages.


----------



## Ajura

berndf said:


> *I think* I understand: He wants to know which branch of the Romance Languages asserted the most influence on English. The answer to this would be: _Anglo-French _aka_ Norman French_ aka _Anglo-Norman_ belonging, together with _Modern French_, to the _Langues d'Oïl_, a sub-group of the _Gallo-Romance_ languages.


 
What I am asking is what is the branch of Romance languages does the Romance strata of English language belong to I am not asking for the language that influenced English because the Romance strata of the Balkan Non Romance languages belong to the Romanian branch...


----------



## berndf

Ajura said:


> What I am asking is what is the branch of romance languages does the romance strata of english language belong to I am not asking for the language that influenced english because the romance strata of the Balkan Non Romance languages belong to the Romanian branch...


What do you mean by "Romance strata of English" if not "branch of the Romance Languages asserted the most influence on English"'?  The term makes no sense to me otherwise.


----------



## clevermizo

Ajura said:


> What I am asking is what is the branch of romance languages does the romance strata of english language belong to I am not asking for the language that influenced english because the romance strata of the Balkan Non Romance languages belong to the Romanian branch...



Umm, okay. Well, Gallo-Romance then.


----------



## Ajura

clevermizo said:


> Umm, okay. Well, Gallo-Romance then.



what sub-branch of it?


----------



## Frank06

Ajura said:


> what sub-branch of it?


You can find a fairly standard, elaborate tree model for the Gallo-Romance languages here.
Now, if you find a word from French in English, you can search here for the name of the language and you'll find the classification (with a set of branches), for example here for French. You can do the same for Spanish and Italian etc.

Frank


----------



## Ajura

Frank06 said:


> You can find a fairly standard, elaborate tree model for the Gallo-Romance languages here.
> Now, if you find a word from French in English, you can search here for the name of the language and you'll find the classification (with a set of branches), for example here for French. You can do the same for Spanish and Italian etc.
> 
> Frank


 
I think most likely it is Oil, it makes me think if English is a hybrid between Dutch and French why did Flemish did not evolve to something like English...


----------



## Frank06

Ajura said:


> I think most likely it is Oil...


Oil it is, at least for French


> From Ethnologue:
> Gallo-Romance (14)> Gallo-Rhaetian (9) > Oïl (6) > French (5)


 


Ajura said:


> if English is a hybrid between Dutch and French why did Flemish did not evolve to something like English...


The short answer: English is not a "hybrid" between Dutch and French.

Frank


----------



## berndf

The main influence is Anglo-French which is a langue d'oil but not the precursor of modern French. But there is no such thing as "the" Romance layer of English. English has Romance imports from different sources and periods. E.g. "Chester" appearing in many place names is from Classical Latin, "warranty" is Anglo-French and "guarantee" is the same word but imported fom Standard French.


----------



## Alxmrphi

berndf said:


> The main influence is Anglo-French which is a langue d'oil but not the precursor of modern French. But there is no such thing as "the" Romance layer of English. English has Romance imports from different sources and periods. E.g. "Chester" appearing in many place names is from Classical Latin, "warranty" is Anglo-French and "guarantee" is the same word but imported fom Standard French.


 
That's the same with warden / guardian isn't it? I'm trying to remember that chapter on English history....... was it that the Anglo-Norman dialect had words that started with *w-* and the cognates in the Standard language was *g-* (?) and English occasionally borrowed both with a different semantic meaning.

But in reference to a string of words taken from English, English absorbed from Italian / Latin / Spanish / French (& Norman French), the bulk of it Norman French, then Latin for learned concepts / ideas.

So to name one Romance language as the source for all words of an ultimately-Latin origin, well, isn't possible because each word has its own idiosyncratic story to tell from across a multitude of languages (expanding far beyond just the realm of the Romance languages) sometimes passing through vastly unrelated languages, like the word *anime *we have today, came from Latin to English used to describe moving cartoons in the early 20th century, then borrowed by Japaneese to still mean cartoon, Japaneese enacted some of its phonological rules on it, let it develop a Japaneese style to mean i.e. manga cartoons and then English borrows the word back again to mean exactly those Japaneese cartoons, so that word came into English twice.


----------



## berndf

Alxmrphi said:


> That's the same with warden  / guardian isn't it?


Yes, the /w/ phoneme in Germanic (mainly Franconian and Old Norse) loans is represented by "w" in Norman French and by "gu" in Standard French.





Alxmrphi said:


> So to name one Romance language as the source for all words of an ultimately-Latin origin, well, isn't possible because each word has its own idiosyncratic story to tell from across a multitude of languages (expanding far beyond just the realm of the Romance languages)


Exactly. I rest my case.


----------



## DenisBiH

Is there a "British-Vulgar-Latin" substrate in English?



Ajura said:


> What I am asking is what is the branch of Romance languages does the Romance strata of English language belong to I am not asking for the language that influenced English *because the Romance strata of the Balkan Non Romance languages belong to the Romanian branch...*



Where did you read this?


----------



## Ajura

DenisBiH said:


> Where did you read this?



http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages#Family_tree_of_Romance_languages


----------



## sokol

Ajura said:


> http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages#Family_tree_of_Romance_languages


This does not say anything about the Romance strata of Non-Romance Balkan languages; it is only a classification tree for Romance languages.

Of course, the origin of Romance words in South Slavic languages and in Albanian is also diverse and by no means only was taken from Eastern Romance languages; for example, there have been plenty of Latin loans, and especially on the Adriatic coast languages have picked up quite some Italian words.



DenisBiH said:


> Is there a "British-Vulgar-Latin" substrate in English?


If there is then it couldn't possibly amount to much; England never became fully romanised (it is believed that only the south and south-east was romanised thoroughly). But I'm not at all informed about early Vulgar Latin loans (or even whether this topic has been studied by linguists in much detail at all).


----------



## berndf

sokol said:


> If there is then it couldn't possibly amount to much; England never became fully romanised (it is believed that only the south and south-east was romanised thoroughly). But I'm not at all informed about early Vulgar Latin loans (or even whether this topic has been studied by linguists in much detail at all).


There were quite a few Latin/early Romance loans in Old English (I mentioned "chester", another is "cat"), but nowhere near as many as after the Norman Conquest.


----------



## DenisBiH

> Of course, the origin of Romance words in South Slavic languages and in Albanian is also diverse and by no means only was taken from Eastern Romance languages; for example, there have been plenty of Latin loans, and especially on the Adriatic coast languages have picked up quite some Italian words.



And even some Dalmatian loans, it seems. An example would be chakavian Croatian kapula "onion". And of course, French (pardon, bombon, masaža, trijaža, vinjeta...)

One might wonder whether Eastern Romance is by far the smallest group of Latin/Romance borrowings in BCS. I would actually like to see some, but it would be off-topic here.


----------



## Alxmrphi

> If there is then it couldn't possibly amount to much; England never became fully romanised (it is believed that only the south and south-east was romanised thoroughly). But I'm not at all informed about early Vulgar Latin loans (or even whether this topic has been studied by linguists in much detail at all).


 
From what I've read, the influence of Latin on English has been split into three stages, the Zero Period, the First Period, and (can you guess the next one? ) the Second Period. 
So the Zero period contained early Latin loans like _camp, weall, stræt_, and others to do with trade like _win_ (wine), _eced _(vinegar) and_ sester_ (jar) etc etc.
This Zero Period was Latin borrowings adopted by the Germanic tribes before the crossing/invasion to England.

Wait, first I should clarify if I understand the question, by British Vulgar Latin substrate are we talking about Latin spoken in Britain that had time to develop in a form that differed from Latin spoken elsewhere, i.e. with significant characteristics of its own? If that's the case I think sokol's right, my book states (referring to the First period):



> From what has been said above about the Roman rule in Britain, the extent to which the country was Romanized, and the employment of Latin by certain elements in the population, one would expect a considerable number of Latin words from this period to have remained in use and to appear in the English language today. But this is not the case. It would be hardly too much to say that not five words outside of a few elements found in place-names can be really proved to owe their presence in English to the Roman occupation of Britain.


 
Source: History of The English Language (4th edition)

So considering it was the departure of the Romans that led the tribes to cross over, there was no direct contact (i.e. of the inhabitants of England) between Vulgar Latin speakers and Old English speakers, or rather speakers of the Germanic dialects brought over from the continent, the use of Latin after that period is related to church rituals and learned scholars, i.e. Latin in a more learned / classical sense.


----------



## sokol

Alxmrphi said:


> Wait, first I should clarify if I understand the question, by British Vulgar Latin substrate are we talking about Latin spoken in Britain that had time to develop in a form that differed from Latin spoken elsewhere, i.e. with significant characteristics of its own?


That was the additional question of DenisBH above, yes, and it is nice to have confirmation that only a very few can be safely attributed to this strata.

But there are of course those other ancient loans berndf and you mentioned.

Anyway, I think it is pretty much clear by now how diverse the origins of Romance words in English is.


----------



## DenisBiH

> So the Zero period contained early Latin loans like _camp, weall, stræt_, and others to do with trade like _win_ (wine), _eced _(vinegar) and_ sester_ (jar) etc etc.


Wine? Isn't wine PIE? Or was it re-borrowed into Germanic?




> Wait, first I should clarify if I understand the question, by British Vulgar Latin substrate are we talking about Latin spoken in Britain that had time to develop in a form that differed from Latin spoken elsewhere, i.e. with significant characteristics of its own? If that's the case I think sokol's right, my book states (referring to the First period):


Latin spoken in Britain by the common Romanized people. I used the term Vulgar presuming it was no longer the Classical Latin, but it does not have to be a form of Latin specific for Britain only. I should have maybe used "vernacular Latin" instead.




> So considering it was the departure of the Romans that led the tribes to cross over, there was no direct contact (i.e. of the inhabitants of England) between Vulgar Latin speakers and Old English speakers, or rather speakers of the Germanic dialects brought over from the continent,


Hm, was that really the case? I'm really always suspicious of any theory that postulates mass disappearances of people. This seems to suggest there might have been remnants of Latin/Romance speakers:



> Scholars such as Christopher Snyder believe that during the 5th and 6th centuries — approximately from 410 AD when Roman legions withdrew, to 597 AD when St. Augustine of Canterbury arrived — southern Britain preserved a sub-Roman society that was able to survive the attacks from the barbarian Anglo-Saxons and even use a vernacular Latin for an active culture.[4]


Lack of a large number of borrowings into Old English could also be the consequence of low prestige of Latin speaking population rather than the lack of speakers themselves.

But the text you quoted answers my question completely, thanks.


----------



## Alxmrphi

> Wine? Isn't wine PIE? Or was it re-borrowed into Germanic?


 
From etymonline.com _O.E. win, from P.Gmc. *winam (cf. O.S., O.Fris., O.H.G. win, O.N. vin, Du. wijn, Ger. Wein), *an early borrowing from L. vinum "wine,"* from PIE *win-o-, from an Italic noun related to words for "wine" in Gk_.

You are correct, it is from PIE, the root is similar, but was an early Latin borrowing.



> Latin spoken in Britain by the common Romanized people. I used the term Vulgar presuming it was no longer the Classical Latin, but it does not have to be a form of Latin specific for Britain only. I should have maybe used "vernacular Latin" instead.


 
Using _Vulgar Latin_ in that sense is completely correct, referring not to the Classical Latin but the Latin spoken by the people, my question was the "British-" part of the question, I was wondering whether it meant a developed type that appeared in Britain only, otherwise I would have expected the OP to say just Vulgar Latin in England.



> Hm, was that really the case? I'm really always suspicious of any theory that postulates mass disappearances of people. This seems to suggest there might have been remnants of Latin/Romance speakers:


 
Well the mass disappearance is fairly well known, when Rome was being attacked by the Germanic tribes around 400AD they just couldn't afford to have such a massive army away in a foreign land and they withdrew, then it was the Celtics revolting let to the, in some books I've read an invite to the Germanic tribes, and I've seen a few documentaries that say it was an unwelcome invasion, that part of history, even scholars are debating, so I'll only report the fact that they did come after the Romans, their opportunity had arisen, no massive army, it makes logical sense that a tribe would see the value in a land such as England and given the army left, it was now unprotected.

As for the regional diversification of Latin, that's news to me so I'd like to go and check out that quote as all the books I've read on the history of English (a few!) don't mention an active / native development of Latin in England, especially after the legions departed.

 
Ahhh, Google Books has a preview of the book that provided the quote for the vernacular Latin statement, but the preview cuts off just before page 577 where the quote was in the actual book! I'd have liked to read what it had to say!
 Wrong quote!


----------



## DenisBiH

> Well the mass disappearance is fairly well known, when Rome was being attacked by the Germanic tribes around 400AD they just couldn't afford to have such a massive army away in a foreign land and they withdrew,




Roman legions withdrew, that's ok, but I'd be suspicious of native Romanized populace abandoning Britain along with the Roman Legions. I'm not saying it can't happen, just that I've learned to be very suspicious of theories that claim those sorts of things where one group of people was completely replaced (left or was obliterated) by another. However, I really don't know much about early history of England. 





> Ahhh, Google Books has a preview of the book that provided the quote for the vernacular Latin statement, but the preview cuts off just before page 577 where the quote was in the actual book! I'd have liked to read what it had to say!




Sometimes it helps to clear cookies or browse from another computer - Google Books may show different pages to different visitors. Not always, though.


----------



## Alxmrphi

> Sometimes it helps to clear cookies or browse from another computer - Google Books may show different pages to different visitors. Not always, though.


 
Good tip, didn't realise that!
I had misread the quote though, that book provides the quote for [3], not [4], which is what I was looking for, however I've just read through that material (here is where it is quoted from) and it doesn't really mention the use of Latin, it says there were only 2 writers from that period and dating historically is very uncertain, so I guess that's up to the reader to make their mind up on if they believe that quote. Even up to the end the vast bulk of the information given still refers to the 5th century, which is the same period when the Romans were there, it doesn't provide a clear account of continuation of activites far after their departure.



> Roman legions withdrew, that's ok, but I'd be suspicious of native Romanized populace abandoning Britain along with the Roman Legions. I'm not saying it can't happen, just that I've learned to be very suspicious of theories that claim those sorts of things where one group of people was completely replaced (left or was obliterated) by another


 
That's a very sensible stance to take!
(I'm going to see what I can find out about it and edit in my findings later)

[Edit]
Some interesting quotes I wanted to point out from the book I quoted from earlier:


> The majority of these (inscriptions) proceed no doubt from the military and official class and, being in the nature of public records, were therefore in the official language. They do not in themselves indicate a widespread use of Latin by the native population. Latin did not replace the Celtic language in Britain as it did in Gaul. Its use by native Britons was probably confined to members of the upper classes and some inhabitants of the cities and towns.


 
This leads me to believe that while Latin might have been used, removal of the culture that introduced it would mean that the speakers could use their other language to communicate (or Latin if they wanted to), so it's not a situation where you have a native speaker lost in the country he lives in, unable to communicate, the Latin speakers that didn't go back to Rome still possessed the native language.

The population left, and then there's what's known as the Celtic uprising, that is because the Celtic population was subdued and treated terribly, that when the Romans left, they revolted against the Romanised populace of Britain, leading _some _to say that they asked for help from the Germanic tribes (this fact is still debated), so they didn't get replaced, but were the target of attacks by the until-then subdued Celts.

The last interesting quote I could find was:



> On the whole, there were certainly many people in Roman Britain who habitually spoke Latin or upon occasion could use it. But its use was not sufficiently widespread to cause it to survive, as the Celtic language survived, the upheaval of the Germanic conquest.


----------



## berndf

DenisBiH said:


> Roman legions withdrew, that's ok, but I'd be suspicious of native Romanized populace abandoning Britain along with the Roman Legions. I'm not saying it can't happen, just that I've learned to be very suspicious of theories that claim those sorts of things where one group of people was completely replaced (left or was obliterated) by another. However, I really don't know much about early history of England.


We don't really know how much (Vulgar) Latin survived the withdrawal of the Roman Army and Administration. Only very little of any non-Germanic language previously spoken in Britain, Celtic or Romance, ever entered Old English. Why this is so, is still a mystery.


----------



## DenisBiH

> Good tip, didn't realise that!
> I had misread the quote though, that book provides the quote for [3], not [4], which is what I was looking for, however I've just read through that material (here is where it is quoted from)




Now that's strange. For some reason I've always placed Arthur in Anglo-Saxon times, fighting the Normans, not in "sub-Roman" times defending Britain against Saxons. Shows just how little I know of this. I guess it's reading time, thanks for the link.


----------

