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From: alderson@netcom16.netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III)
Subject: Re: French and English language relations: past and present...
In-Reply-To: Lynn Myers's message of Mon, 04 Nov 1996 22:31:10 -0400
Message-ID: <ALDERSON.96Nov5125318@netcom16.netcom.com>
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References: <327EA6EC.2746@copland.udel.edu>
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 20:53:17 GMT
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In article <327EA6EC.2746@copland.udel.edu> Lynn Myers <79992@copland.udel.edu>
writes:

>... as I assume that the majority of people who communicate through this
>newsgroup are linguists.

There's your first mistaken assumption:  I doubt that one in ten of the posters
here is a linguist in the academic sense.

>I read somewhere that the English language is due, in large part, to Latin and
>French.

Be interesting to know what you  mean by "due" in this context.  In its history
English has borrowed a large number of words from French and Latin, but I would
hardly say "due".

>What are your opinions/thoughts on the history of the English language as it
>pertains to its French ties?

That French provided a large influx of technical terms in the  areas of law and
government in the 14th century, after the Norman invasion of 300 years earlier
primed the pump, as it were.

That English was not altogether gone as a literary language even under the
Normans and Angevins.  The earliest poem in the _Oxford Book of English Poetry_
is dated (if I recall correctly) to c. 1250.  From memory:

	Ic am of Irlond
	And of the holy londe of Irlond
	Gode sir, pray ic the
	to come and dance with me
	In Irlond.

(Only one French borrowing in the poem.)

That you'd do better looking at half a dozen books on the history of English
that asking on what is (unfortunately) mostly a non-technical, polemical,
recreational newsgroup.

>Sidebar:  What is the etymology of the word "(to) experience"?
>I know that the French infinitive is "eprouver".

No, the infinitive of the French *translation* is _eprouver_.  The two are
unrelated etymologically.  _Experience_ derives, via Old French, from the Latin
_experientia_ "test, trial experiment; experience, practice; effort", a noun
derived from the verb _experior, experiri_ "test, try, prove; experience,
endure, find out".  You could have found this more easily by looking at the
_Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology_ (or any good-sized dictionary)
and any paperback Latin-English dictionary.
-- 
Rich Alderson   You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
                of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
                logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
                know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
                as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
                what not.
                                                --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alderson@netcom.com                               _The Notion Club Papers_
