Re: Submerged Languages

junk

Thank you very much for your list. Yes, there seem to be a lot of Gaulish words in French, I just saw in the Larousse Dictionnaire des Mots d'Origine Etrangère. Some of these words, however, are not exclusively French (eg, changer=It.cambiare, chemin=Sp.camino). Other words I couldn't find in the diccionary (eg, petit, mouton).

Marc

There is a list of Gaulish influence in French anywhere from 180 words to 400 - depending on the analysis. Most of these words relate to terms common in the countryside amongst the peasant class (the last speakers of Gaulish). The largest influence came in the form of Celtic sound-shift and mutation, but some maintain that there is some grammatical influence - like aveugle "blind" being fromed from a Gallo-Latin *ab-oculus perhaps in translation of Gaulish exsops ("blind" from *eghs-okw-s).

Some Gaulish words in french include:

Ambassade

Berret

Bruyere

Cervoise

Change

Charpente (also our English word Carpenter)

Chemin

Flanelle

Javelot

Mouton

Palefroi

Petit

Quai

Truand

Vassal

Are there clear examples of Celtic influence in French? It's often stated, but I doubt it. --Marc

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.