Yes Ricky it is the one by Graham Robb - I couldn't remember the author's name. Entirely agree that it would be recommended reading for people coming to France.
Assuming that was The Discovery of France by Graham Robb, Nick, it is one of the best and most enlightening books I've read on France, explaining a lot as to why 2 villages might be connected by 3 or 4 different roads to, as you say, different languages, almost, in places a few km away from each other. For anyone thinking of moving to France, it would make a great read for putting a lot of French life in context.
Andrew Hearne, not forgetting the huge contribution Shakespeare made to the colour of the English language. If there had been a French Shakespeare. l'Académie Française would probably have censored him!
Another good source for delving further into these odd linguistic connections is Bill Bryson's 'The Mother Tongue'.
I have actually found that by receiving letters/documents from france then typing in the french words into a translator here is helping... so maybe there is hope yet..
What an excellent post Ricky.
I was reading recently in a book called "The Discovery of France" that the Académie Française was initially set up to remove words from common usage and instigate a unified French language. The problem was that as you moved from village to village you would hear a different word for the same item or having the same meaning (synonyms). Quite often these words sounded similar too. A lot of which was the local patois and different in each village even if it was just 2km away.
The académie française was therefore created to remove the x number of words for say, cow, and unifythem into one word.
La vache!
Good point Guy - English is such a bastardised language! it's a germanic language as you say but over half the vocabulary comes from romance (latin) languages:
Christine - open yourself up to French in all it's forms - written, spoken, TV, papers, books, tapes, CDs... it all helps combined with some grammer so you can take the language apart and re-use it. Bonne chance ;-)
One has to be careful, however, coming to conclusions. A Dutch acquaintance was talking about how annoying it was when eagles fell into the swimming pool... Impossible to understand, unless you know that the Dutch word for hedgehog is 'egel'. One can't presume!!
wow - as a, as of now, a non french speaker I found your piece facinating Ricky (and yours Andrew)... the one thing I'm worried about when we make the move is my lack of french and yes I've listened to tapes and CD's etc. but I know that I get confused and can't find the words when I'm there and need them..... you're piece has made me think that once I get my head around it - it won't be as bad as I think.... Thank you.
Christine
Of course we have the French (or Normans, really) to thank for making English such a wonderfully rich language, having both Latin and Germanic components!
ah l'académie française - they really have a lot to answer for : since 1635 they've been stopping any sort of real change or evolution in the French language. I always joke with friends that it's ridiculous when the same object can be masculine or feminine - un vélo/une bicyclette and why on earth is a bloke's todger feminine une bite and a woman's breasts masculine - surely they epitomise femininity! :-O
But the real fun in French comes when you can use some patois too, totally confusing French people who aren't from the area ;-)