Marc Verhaegen writes: Are there clear examples of Celtic influence
in French? It's often stated, but I doubt it.
I wrote: The standard term is "substratum" or "substrate". A
substrate language is what you are describing as a "submerged
language". A substratum language is spoken of when a population has
undergone language replacement. In ancient France, Romance replaced the
Celtic language of the Gauls, but left certain remains, both in
vocabulary, and in phonology. In other circumstances, even a few
grammatical elements are passed on to the successor language.
If I go dig out some books, I should be able to come up with some
toponyms and hydronyms. These are classic 'substratum' items. French
is also said to have a Germanic superstratum. As I remember reading
someplace once, this Germanic superstratum, combined with the
then-recent Celtic substratum, permanently warped French phonology. I
cannot cite anything to support this, however. Mark.
Celtic toponyms & hydronyms, yes, but more than that? If we knew the
differences between Gallo-Roman and other Roman dialects we could get an
estimation of the Celtic influence, but I don't think it was much
greater than the Amerindian influence upon American English, Spanish or
Portuguese. I think Germanic influence (Franconian) can explain most of
French phonology.
Marc
Gerry here: What about Luxembourg which sits on the frontier of the
Germanic and romance languages. Did the folks in Luxembourg undergo a
language change, or did the folks in the surrounding territory
experience the additions?
Gerry
--
Gerald Reinhart
Independent Scholar
(650) 321-7378
waluk@...
http://www.alekseevmanuscript.com