Words of French Origin in English

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  • Опубліковано 3 гру 2024

КОМЕНТАРІ • 89

  • @danielbickford3458
    @danielbickford3458 6 днів тому +85

    I've seen English described as the most Latin of the Germanic languages and French as the most Germanic of the Latin languages.

    • @JosephDavidBen
      @JosephDavidBen 6 днів тому +14

      It is true. France in general is different from other Latin nations, it was founded by Germanic tribes (the Franks), it really is a mixed bag of plenty ethnic groups and cultures

    • @johnearle7776
      @johnearle7776 6 днів тому +4

      @@JosephDavidBen The French spoken in Belgium has a different cadence altogether from Paris. Centuries of exposure to Dutch and German have altered it slightly. By the same token, Flemish uses merci instead of danke.

    • @Quromato
      @Quromato 6 днів тому +6

      Romansh has more Germanic.

    • @johnearle7776
      @johnearle7776 6 днів тому

      @ Luxembourgish is a mish mash too. He’s talking about major languages.

    • @JosephDavidBen
      @JosephDavidBen 5 днів тому +2

      @@johnearle7776 yes. The French spoken in Canada is even more different because it has evolved in its own way far from its home country, not even mentioning the many French dialects spoken in Africa or Haiti

  • @johnearle7776
    @johnearle7776 6 днів тому +19

    If William had lost the Battle Of Hastings, English would have likely been similar to Dutch.

    • @Fiend1sh3
      @Fiend1sh3 3 дні тому

      English sounds beautiful, whereas Dutch sounds awful.

    • @Tuna_Casperole
      @Tuna_Casperole День тому +2

      Probably more similar to Frisian which is said to be the closest relative language

    • @johnearle7776
      @johnearle7776 День тому

      @ It boils down to semantics. Frisian has been exposed to so much Dutch that both are closely related to English. If you go to Hamburg and listen closely, you’ll pick up a fair bit of the conversation. For what it’s worth, I have a Dutch friend in Groningen who swears she can go to Essen or Hamburg and make herself understood.

  • @dan_leo
    @dan_leo 6 днів тому +11

    For me that’s why it’s quite easy to learn English if your first language is a Romance one.
    English is a bridge between Germanic and Romance languages, and that is another reason for its success as a lingua franca.

  • @DCinchi
    @DCinchi 5 днів тому +2

    Great to see you making videos again, my friend!

    • @Langfocus
      @Langfocus  5 днів тому +4

      I’ve never stopped. Make sure you check out my channel page, because UA-cam usually doesn’t inform subscribers of my new videos.

    • @DCinchi
      @DCinchi 5 днів тому

      @Langfocus merci! You are amazing!

  • @ChristopherBonis
    @ChristopherBonis 6 днів тому +19

    Doesn’t the ô in French indicate the former presence of an ‘s’-meaning it would been ‘hôspital’ (virtually identical to the English word)?

    • @diogoeusebio4111
      @diogoeusebio4111 6 днів тому +3

      It is often the case, but not everytime. Contrôle for example has this ô so the the letter isn’t pronounced open.

    • @billanderson9908
      @billanderson9908 6 днів тому

      It also indicates, as in arôma and aerodrôme, a word of Greek origin.

    • @todcatbobg7673
      @todcatbobg7673 6 днів тому +1

      He literally said that. Dis you try watching the video with the sound on?

    • @amazingcaio4803
      @amazingcaio4803 6 днів тому +1

      ​​​@@billanderson9908 I think you mean _arôme_ rather than _arôma_ .
      Also, there's so circumflex in _aérodrome_ . While it may indicate that the word comes from Ancient Greek, it's generally used only when the corresponding Greek letter is an omega (ω) that represents the [o] sound. The Greek word for _drome_ his spelled with an omicron, not an omega, which is why the word has no circumflex.
      That said, many French words are spelled inconsistent in this regard. _Zone_ should have a circumflex, but it doesn't, and _trône_ should not have one but it does. _Binôme_ is even worse. It's spelled with the circumflex, but it's not even a Greek word; it comes from Latin.

  • @hoangkimviet8545
    @hoangkimviet8545 6 днів тому +20

    Many people say that English words of French origins can be only seen in academic situations. I don't agree to this idea. Many daily words in English are already come from French. Hospital, bridge, bicycle, table, bottle, battle, balcony, beef, motton, etc. The influence of French on English is more remarkable than many people believe.

    • @brucerosner3547
      @brucerosner3547 6 днів тому +3

      English often has both a French and Old English word for the same thing. For example belly and stomach. The more formal or "classier" word is the French derived.

    • @JosephDavidBen
      @JosephDavidBen 6 днів тому +3

      As someone who speaks both languages I can assure you 100% that French words are used in every contexts, not only academic situations. I can see plenty in your comment and I'm not referring to the words you used as examples.

    • @hoangkimviet8545
      @hoangkimviet8545 6 днів тому +4

      @brucerosner3547 I think the region after the Norman conquest in 1066, Normans were the noble people and leaders of England. They spoke French. Meanwhile, common people still spoke English. So, conventionally, words coming from French are considered more formal, academic and elegant.
      I can think about this phenomenon a lot as this also happens in Vietnamese. Chinese people were once rulers in Vietnam and local Vietnamese were ruled. So, Vietnamese words of Chinese origin are considered as more elegant, academic and formal. For example, "airport" in Vietnamese can be "sân bay" and "phi trường", but "phi trường" is more elegant as it comes from Chinese. Or, "rocket" in Vietnamese can be "tên lửa" and "hoả tiễn", "hoả tiễn" sounds more formal than "tên lửa" as once again, "hoả tiễn" is from Chinese.

    • @krips22
      @krips22 2 дні тому +1

      To hoangkimviet8545 : yes, plenty of things from the daily life: garage, forest, river, farm, mountain, fork, trunk, match, courage, chimney, route, squirrel, mushroom, prey, calm, image, rock, car, jacket, cap, nephew, niece, bench, army, police, judge, village, city, country, county, beauty, parachute, plane, habit, people, very, debris, avalanche, train, cash, gadget, etc... the list goes on.

    • @anonnymowse
      @anonnymowse День тому

      Bridge and pont don't look alike.

  • @anonnymowse
    @anonnymowse День тому +1

    If a word in French has a circumflex over the vowel, it is followed by an S in English. Hôpital > Hospital Arrêt > Arrest

  • @andyjay729
    @andyjay729 5 днів тому

    Happy American Thanksgiving! (Yes, I know you're Canadian and you have your own Thanksgiving.) For next year's Thanksgiving (either one), would you consider doing a video on the Massachusett/Natick language, which is the language of the natives of Plymouth, MA? Or maybe something on the Algonquian language family, of which it's part.

  • @azx43
    @azx43 6 днів тому +2

    The standard French isn't from Paris but from the area arround Tours / Angers because of "La Pléiade" in the XVI century.

    • @morzhed-hoqh732
      @morzhed-hoqh732 6 днів тому +1

      Faux ! L’Angevin ou le Tourangeau sont des dialectes d’oïl qui n’ont pas engendré le français standard.
      Le Français standard est une forme du dialecte Parisien, parlé par la noblesse française.

    • @azx43
      @azx43 2 дні тому +1

      ​@@morzhed-hoqh732That's a cool story for For Parisian asshole and provincial whiner.
      So now go take etymology lessons, and stop write popular bullshit story on internet.

    • @johnearle7776
      @johnearle7776 День тому

      @@morzhed-hoqh732 I learnt Parisian French in school here in Canada. I find the Parisian French far easier to understand than the French spoken in Quebec. When Jacques Chirac spoke on television, I understood every word.

  • @normanlevesque
    @normanlevesque 2 дні тому

    ANd we know that words in G in French (like Guillaume) are related to words in W in English (William). So Wardrobe comes from Garde-robe. :)

  • @SantaFe19484
    @SantaFe19484 6 днів тому +2

    There is so much French vocabulary in English, it is hard to know where to start.

    • @dvx-ze1qz
      @dvx-ze1qz 6 днів тому +1

      You can start with the word "vocabulary" (vocabulaire in French)

  • @eduardodifarnecio2336
    @eduardodifarnecio2336 День тому

    Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe imagines the animosity between the Anglo Saxons population and the Norman rulers during the Middle Ages

  • @Peleski
    @Peleski 2 дні тому

    It's nice speaking a dog's breakfast language if traveling anywhere in W Europe. You can work out most things in those languages

  • @BernardGreenberg
    @BernardGreenberg 3 дні тому +2

    It's not possible to say "this word is from French, and not Latin" or vice-versa for the majority of words that came _through_ French. "nation" and "Difference" are exactly like that.

    • @Langfocus
      @Langfocus  3 дні тому +1

      When I say lots of words come from French, of course I mean that most of them ultimately trace back to Latin.

    • @BernardGreenberg
      @BernardGreenberg 3 дні тому

      @@Langfocus But you show "French" and "Latin" as fraternal wedges in your pie.....What "Latin" words do you have in mind as "not from French"? Words like "circus" that are closer to their Latin form than the corresponding French word (cirque)?

  • @zippersocks
    @zippersocks День тому

    Some words were doubled. Like liquor and liqueur, or cream and crème.

  • @andyjay729
    @andyjay729 5 днів тому +3

    Quite a lot of French vocabulary also entered other European languages, right (if not to the degree as with English)? Talk about a "lingua franca".

  • @RetroZeff
    @RetroZeff 6 днів тому +1

    Well, I didn’t quite understand any of that, but did anyone else think the map of the Norman conquest looks like a caveman sitting down?

  • @francoislechanceux5818
    @francoislechanceux5818 2 дні тому +1

    Now it's the opposite. Every year more and more English words enter and adopted by the French language.

  • @itsROMPERS...
    @itsROMPERS... 2 дні тому

    What about "garage"?

    • @krips22
      @krips22 2 дні тому

      Yes, it's French, like most English words ending in -age. Ex: village, courage, entourage, vintage, image, damage, mirage, carnage, ravage, triage, etc... even though there are English words coined using this French suffix (shortage, cabbage, luggage,...)

    • @itsROMPERS...
      @itsROMPERS... 2 дні тому

      @krips22 good list!
      But "cabbage"?
      "All the cabb out there amounts to significant _cabb-age!"_
      Now I'm gonna laugh when i go to the produce section!
      Thanks!

    • @krips22
      @krips22 2 дні тому

      @@itsROMPERS... Oops... after verification, cabbage comes from French but... not from a word in -age apparently. It's related to "caboche" for what I understood. My mistake. The rest should be fine.

    • @itsROMPERS...
      @itsROMPERS... 2 дні тому

      @krips22 it was funnier the other way!

  • @johngavin1175
    @johngavin1175 5 днів тому

    Which of those were ultimately of Frankish origin?

  • @JorgeAlvarezOre
    @JorgeAlvarezOre 5 днів тому +1

    0:24 Y en español exactamente igual: Nación, hospital y diferencia.

  • @amazinglylifelike555
    @amazinglylifelike555 2 дні тому

    The map at 0:28 looks like a guy kneeling

  • @bagdat3535
    @bagdat3535 6 днів тому +2

    Yes, true! But Chinese is not related to Japanese, meaning they are not from the same linguistic stock, whereas French and English belong to the Indo-European stock. Stock or family.

    • @Langfocus
      @Langfocus  6 днів тому +7

      Yes, English and French are both IE languages. But if you think about their different branches (Germanic and Romance) the affect of the borrowed vocabulary is similar to Chinese vocabulary in Japanese.
      There are words in both languages that stem back to the same IE roots, but have often developed quite differently. Like mother vs mère, brother vs. frère, etc.

    • @krips22
      @krips22 2 дні тому

      To bagdat3535: Most people don't realize how much Germanic words are close of many Latin words (especially when you know the rules of the sound shifts, ex: lat. P / grm. F, lat. H / germ. G, lat. I / germ. E, etc...).
      Examples: latin / germanic:
      Vent- / wind
      Dent- / tand (dutch) = tooth
      Hort- / gård (danish)
      Pisc- / fisk (danish) = fish
      Cord- / hart (dutch) = heart
      Tonitr- / donder (dutch) = thunder
      Vulg- / volk (german) = folk
      Mulg (-ere) / milk (mulgere = to milk)
      Capit- / hoved (danish) = head
      Melit- / mild (melit- = sweet as honey IIRC)
      Ov- / ewe
      Etc... there's much more for the list.

    • @wasehuji200
      @wasehuji200 2 дні тому

      I think that interpretation is a little different.
      To be precise, Japanese inherited not "vocabulary" but "kanji" from Chinese.
      For example, the word "手紙" is a famous translation.
      This word is translated as "letter" in Japanese, but in Chinese it is translated as "toilet paper.😂
      I am Japanese, but I cannot read Chinese, even though we use the same kanji.

  • @billanderson9908
    @billanderson9908 6 днів тому +4

    Thank you this REALLY hits the spot. Many Americans have this erroneous, viscious idea that the French would be speaking German if the U.S. hadn't entered WWII. This is reflected in the otherwise good movie Monuments Men, where Matt Damon's character makes this crack to Cate Blanchett's character, whereupon she responds, "I would still be speaking French." English owes its evolution to French, and to Latin by extension.

    • @Blaqjaqshellaq
      @Blaqjaqshellaq 6 днів тому

      The British and the Russians had something to do with it too!

    • @xdcfjngkjdrx
      @xdcfjngkjdrx 6 днів тому

      English was indeed influenced by French, but what does it have to do with those 'vicious' claims? Emphasizing on some ancient language contact allows you to discredit the contribution of U.S. in the War?

  • @chefnyc
    @chefnyc 5 днів тому

    I heard that when the animal is in the farm the word comes from German (Kuh -> cow). When it’s on the table it comes from French (bœuf -> beef).

  • @allisterwhitehead
    @allisterwhitehead 2 дні тому

    You have to remember that most of northern France and England were Viking conquest Norse settlements that evolved into separate nation states. The mixing of conquered native blood and cultures aside, The Normans and the English were more or less of the same origin.

  • @PaulBen19
    @PaulBen19 6 днів тому +1

    Have no one made the connection to Spanish and French language as well?

    • @hadiisaboss5307
      @hadiisaboss5307 6 днів тому +3

      It's different, Spanish and French are directly related due to both languages being dialects of vulgar Latin. English didn't come from vulgar Latin

  • @alejmora
    @alejmora День тому

    Pretty sure that nation, hospital and difference come from Latin.

    • @joman563
      @joman563 День тому +1

      In Latin, it’s gens, hospitium and differentia. (The word natio did exist in Latin, but it meant birth, not country.)

  • @TirjaNur
    @TirjaNur 2 дні тому

    You forget spanish.

  • @alioth7403
    @alioth7403 5 днів тому

    In other words, modern English is a creole language.

  • @ievgend87
    @ievgend87 5 днів тому

    And all of these words derived from Latin.

  • @josecarloscobo3556
    @josecarloscobo3556 6 днів тому

    french coming from Latin….. ok

  • @kristian9236
    @kristian9236 4 дні тому

    So, it’s a mistake on the part of Americans to refer to Ibero-American countries as ‘Latinos,’ when they themselves have more than half of their vocabulary derived from French and Latin. In other words, this is something I’ve always argued, but here in the USA, they use it to separate themselves from the rest of the American continent in a cunning and convenient way.
    Thank you for agreeing with me.

    • @joman563
      @joman563 3 дні тому

      Ibero-Americans call themselves “Latinoamericanos”, and usually dislike the more accurate alternatives of “Hispanoamericanos” or “Iberoamericanos”.

  • @ahernandez224
    @ahernandez224 День тому

    Latin was the language of the courts and church. Until the late 1800s, knowing Latin was essentially a requirement to attend university in most Western countries, as it was considered the language of scholarship and most academic texts were written in Latin, meaning students needed to be proficient in the language to access higher education; entrance exams were mostly in Latin grammar and translation. 😮

  • @juanquinteros568
    @juanquinteros568 4 дні тому

    Actually the English language has always sought to approximate and appropriate as much Latin as possible. This is because the Anglos are not really part of western civilisation (ie Western Europe) and have always sought to approximate western cultures, especially all things Greco/Latin via French, Spanish, Italian etc. the irony is that now the Anglos believ themselves to be the ‘cupbearers’ & ‘spearheads’ of western civilisation.

    • @joman563
      @joman563 3 дні тому

      Why England is not part of Western Europe?

    • @juanquinteros568
      @juanquinteros568 2 дні тому

      @ because geographically it’s impossible you moron!

    • @juanquinteros568
      @juanquinteros568 2 дні тому

      @@joman563 you must be geographically illiterate to ask such a question. Western Europe refers to the part of Europe that is 'West of'. Its continental Europe whose parts are Western. England is not in the Western part of continental europe. That really what such a silly question

    • @juanquinteros568
      @juanquinteros568 2 дні тому

      Tu pregunta te delata

    • @joman563
      @joman563 2 дні тому

      @@juanquinteros568So Shakespeare, Parliamentary democracy, William of Ockham, Canterbury Tales, Stonehenge, etc, are not part of Western civilisation?
      A palabras necias, oídos sordos.