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| Subject: I would disagree with that analysis, Ed. | |
Author: Paddy (Scotland) | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: 16:55:39 11/07/04 Sun In reply to: Ed Harris (Venezia) 's message, "French" on 12:57:05 11/07/04 Sun In a great many countries speaking French is very much a sign of being civilised. Most of the better words in English come from French. Who can doubt that impenetrable is several orders of magnitude greater than the hellishly barbarian ungothroughable? Yes, practically no-one speaks it on a global scale but nevertheless its litereture is far superior to Spanish and is still, by a long way, the best language to express many feelings. In diplomatic terms, it is one of the few languages that can be spoken slowly and with little animation required to emphasise a point. Also French is a very precise language unlike English in many intances. Quite apart from that, seven million of H.M. subjects speak French as a first language. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Ah,,, | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Back in Shropshire) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 14:53:33 11/08/04 Mon So true... mustn't forget the Quebecois. But I still think that, after English, there are languages whose speakers outnumber those of French in HM's realms. As for the sophistication and elegance, having studied French and French literature - and, though I say it who shouldn't, having done it rather well, coming top in the country for my year - I really don't think that it can match English, or Italian. And English is only imprecise because we allow it to be, combined with its diffuse and evolving nature. I like to think of the relationship between the mind, language, and meaning in terms of a quaint metaphor, involving boats and expanses of water. Ancient Greek, for example, is like navigating up a river with many tributaries: it takes you in a straight line from where you are to the end, ever pushing you forwards, with new flows coming in from the sides and forcing you further and faster forward in the same direction, towards the inevitable, the only outcome. Explains a lot of Sophocles, that. But English is like being in a small coracle in the middle of the Atlantic: you can go in any direction, for thousands of miles, with more over the horizon, no end in sight, you can even go straight downwards if you don't row properly. Explains a lot of modern poetry, that. And French is precise because it is like going up a canal in a barge: it's straight, it's concrete, and occasionally you have to pause while the lock-gates open and you have to wait for the water to come up to your level. Great for science, lousy for poetry. I have many French friends and am quite the Francophile, but I don't care for the language, and have never understood the emphasis which is placed on it. It sounds pretty, but if that is to be our basis for deciding which languages are most important, then we should all be learning Italian, Swahilli, or those wonderful-souding native American languages. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Blesse mon coeur d'une langueur monotone! | |
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Author: Paddy (Scotland) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 15:24:10 11/08/04 Mon Perhaps you have a point about French poetry... A translation into French of Beowolf would lack a certain somthing. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Aha! | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Back in Shropshire) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 16:05:07 11/08/04 Mon A chink in the Auld Alliance, methinks! ;-) Well, perhaps not until Scots bumper stickers stop saying "Ecosse" on them... Seriously, though, I do feel that some languages would make good translations of Beowulf. I've seen a rather nifty one in Norwegian, and indeed most Teuto-Nordic languages can translate English quite well... I know I'm always banging on about Norwegian, but if you want proof that we're not a Latin people just get a Norwegian grammar book: Norwegian sounds like Scotsmen trying to speak Dutch... fantastic. I do take your point about some cracking words comming from French, but I would say that many of them come straight from Latin and were in use here before the Norman Conquest. The classic example is the word "Germany". The Romans said 'Germania', we say 'Germany'... but the French say 'Allemagne', so we couldn't have got the word from them. Beware of Frenchmen who tell you that "soixant pour-cent des mots anglais ont une origine francaise'... At least half of those, I'd say, come straight from Latin, and another quarter are scientific words from the 18th Century, like Newton's "centrifugal forces". That said, I'm not quite a Thomas Beecham... was it he who wanted to remove all Latin/French words from English, and would not call himself the 'conductor of the orchesta' but insisted on 'master of the band', because the latter phrase uses only Germanic words? Ah, our country has produced some fine eccentrics! [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |