A Comparative Analysis of French and Italian Languages - Essay Example

Order 211436 Topic: A comparative analysis of the formation of standard French and standard Italian (historical background) French LanguageStandard French (in French: le français standard, le français neutre [Neutral French] or even by the misnomer le français international [International French]) is an unofficial term for a standard variety of the French language. It is a set of spoken and written formal varieties used by the educated francophones of several nations around the world. Standard French is also the language of dictionaries, higher education, the press, television and radio broadcasting in addition to government and business-related communication. As such it is a prestige dialect. In France, Standard French is based on the pronunciation and vocabulary used in the formal registers of the French of Metropolitan France, dominated by Paris and called "Parisian French" while not taking into account the multiple other registers used daily in the nations capital. Although Standard French has in fact undergone centuries of human intervention and language planning, popular opinion, however, contends that Standard French should consist solely of the rulings by the Académie française in France, or in standardization from terminological work by the Office québécois de la langue française in Quebec. There is further perceived or actual linguistic hegemony in favor of France by virtue of tradition, former imperialism, and a demographic majority. Such notions hinge on linguistic prestige rather than on a linguistic norm. Also, despite the existence of many regional varieties of French in the Francophone world, Standard French is normally chosen as a model for learners of French as a foreign or second language. The standard pronunciation of Metropolitan French is, out of concerns for comprehension or social stigma, sometimes favored over other standard national pronunciations when teaching French to non-native speakers in Francophone nations other than France. But just what is standard French and where is it spoken? That honor is held by Parisian French as spoken by the middle classes, but not for long, if French-Canadians have anything to say about it. Though the French complain about the incursion of English into their language, they dont fight it nearly as much as French-speaking Canadians do. Whereas stop signs in France say stop, their Québécois counterparts say arrêt. Le week-end in France is known as la fin de semaine in Québec. And of course, the word chosen to replace "email" in France was the Québécois term courriel. Thus Canadians feel that their French is actually better than that spoken in France and should be the standard. Therefore, French-Canadians have started a petition to have their French become the standard by which all other variations are measured. Jean Charest, Premier of Québec, had this to say: Au Québec, on parle français. Notre langue nest pas un petit dialecte « franco-canadien » et elle nest pas remplie de franglais comme le français hexagonal. Nous insistons désormais que notre français, cest la norme. (In Québec, we speak French. Our language is not some "French-Canadian" dialect, and its not full of franglais like the French in France. We insist that from now on our French is the standard.) (french.about.com/od/francophonie/a/4_1_05a.htm - 24k - Cached) French (Français) is a Romance language spoken in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada (principally Quebec), northern New England (especially the state of Vermont), the state of Louisiana and in many other countries and regions formerly or currently governed by France. It is an official language of more than 25 countries. French is spoken as a mother language by 72,000,000 people and as a second language by some other 52,000,000. It is one of the five official languages of the United Nations. Origin and History French dialects developped from the Vulgar Latin which was brought to Northern Gaul with the Roman conquest in the 1st century B.C. (see Rome). The history of French language is divided into 6 main periods: Gallo-Romance (5th-8th centuries). The Vulgar Latin in Gaul has developped specific features that made it distinct from the Latin spoken in the other regions of the Roman empire. The Reichenau Glosses are a good example of its phonetics and vocabulary. Old French (9th-13th centuries). The dialects of Northern Gaul developed into separate language (Langue doil, see below) with a grammar of its own. The first written materials in it date from the Strasbourg Oaths of 842. The Old French literature flourished since the 10th century (chansons de geste etc.). French in this period was already taught in the neighboring countries (especially in Germany). In 11th-13th centuries it was the dominant language of the English administration (see more in the Romance Influences on English). It was, also, the language of the crusaders in the Levantine countries. Middle French (14th-15th centuries). This period was marked by changes both in the pronunciation and in the grammar. A common literary language, based on the dialect of Île de France (the region of Paris), was promoted by the writers. French was replacing Latin in the texts of the public administration in France. Early Modern French (16th century). The aim of the writers of this period, as is the case of the poets of La Pléiade, was to elevate the French language to the level of Latin as a medium for literary expression, In 1539 a royal decree proclaimed French official language of the public administration. Since that period the government was always involved in the development and the standardization of the language. Classical Modern French (17th-18th century). In this period were fixed the main grammar convention of the modern French. By then it was used as an international language throughout Europe and even in the administrative correspondence of countries as Germany. With the colonial expansion of France French spread to America (Canada, Louisiana, the Caribbean islands etc.). Contemporary Modern French (since 19th century). The contemporary pronunciation of the standard language was fixed in that period, namely between 1789 and 1918. French was established as an official language in the French and Belgian colonial possessions in Africa. Standard French has also greatly reduced the use of the Occitan language of southern France (the so-called Langue doc, from Provençal oc for yes). Occitans major dialect, Provençal, was a widely used medieval literary language. (http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/French/French.html) French belongs to the Romance branch of the Indo-European language family. Like all Romance languages, it developed from Vulgar Latin spoken by the Roman invaders. Before the Roman invasion of what is France today, the territory was inhabited by a Celtic people whom the Romans called Gauls. The language of the Gauls had little impact on French. French is the official or co-official language of 26 countries. Four of them are in Europe: France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Luxembourg. Two are in the Americas: Canada and Haiti. There are also two overseas departments of France: Martinique and Guadeloupe. The rest are former French colonies in Africa and in the islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. French is a major second language in Arabic-speaking Algeria, Tunis, and Morocco. World-wide, it is spoken in 53 countries, making it one of the most wide-spread languages of the world. (www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/january/French.html - 52k - Cached) The heyday of the French language in the 17th and 18th centuries , coincided with the peak of French military, economic, and diplomatic powers. It became the language of diplomacy, the language in which treaties were written and notes exchanged between great powers. (France .Library of Nations,1984) All together, French is the official language of more than 40 million people outside France. More than this, French has been for centuries, the means of carrying European culture around the world. (The New Book of Knowledge,Vol. 9, 2002). Standard Italian The language, now known as Italian, is essentially the dialect of Tuscany, although the Tuscan accent is not the same as standard Italian. (Italy.Library of Nations,1985). Italian Language is one of the Romance group of languages of the Indo-European language family. It is spoken principally in the Italian peninsula, southern Switzerland, San Marino, Sicily, Corsica, northern Sardinia, and on the northeastern shore of the Adriatic Sea, as well as in North and South America. Considered a single language with numerous dialects, Italian, like the other Romance languages, is the direct offspring of the Latin spoken by the Romans and imposed by them on the peoples under their dominion. Of all the major Romance languages, Italian retains the closest resemblance to Latin. The struggle between the written but dead language and the various forms of the living speech, most of which were derived from Vulgar Latin, was nowhere so intense or so protracted as in Italy. During the long period of the evolution of Italian, many dialects sprang up. In the north and northwest the Gallo-Italian dialects predominate; they are Piedmontese, Lombard, Ligurian, and Emilian or Bolognese, all of which display a close affinity to French in their pronunciation and truncated terminations. The Venetian dialect is spoken in the Italian Tirol and parts of what used to be Dalmatia and Istria, in addition to the Venetian area itself. South of these districts the centrosouthern Italian dialects are found; these are Tuscan, Corsican, north Sardinian, Roman (with which are included the closely related dialects of Umbria and The Marches), Campanian (with which are included Abruzzese and Apulian), Sicilian, and Calabrian. South and central Sardinian dialects are so distinct from this entire group of dialects that they constitute a separate branch of the Romance languages, while an Italian dialect of the Eastern Alps, Friulian, which is spoken in northeastern Venetia, is considered by most linguists to be a Rhaeto-Romanic dialect. The multiplicity of these dialects and their individual claims upon their native speakers as pure Italian speech presented a peculiar difficulty in the evolution of an accepted form of Italian that would reflect the cultural unity of the entire peninsula. Even the earliest popular Italian documents, produced in the 10th century, are dialectal in language, and during the following three centuries Italian writers wrote in their native dialects, producing a number of competing regional schools of literature. During the 14th century the Tuscan dialect began to predominate, because of the central position of Tuscany (Toscana) in Italy, and because of the aggressive commerce of its most important city, Florence. Moreover, of all the Italian dialects, Tuscan departs least in morphology and phonology from classical Latin, and it therefore harmonizes best with the Italian traditions of Latin culture. Finally, Florentine culture produced the three literary artists who best summarized Italian thought and feeling of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance: Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. Grammarians during the 15th and the 16th centuries attempted to confer upon the pronunciation, syntax, and vocabulary of 14th-century Tuscan the status of a central and classical Italian speech. Eventually this classicism, which might have made Italian another dead language, was widened to include the organic changes inevitable in a living tongue. In the dictionaries and publications of the Accademia della Crusca, founded in 1583, which have been accepted by Italians as authoritative in Italian linguistic matters, compromises between classical purism and living Tuscan usage have been successfully effected. Italy currently has one national language: Standard Italian. Alongside Italian and its inevitable regional varieties are innumerable local Romance languages, many of which pre-date the establishment of Italian. Many of these languages are different enough from Standard Italian to be considered separate languages by most linguists and many speakers. Quite naturally, they are generally not standardized. Thus a distinction can be made between "dialects -- better termed varieties -- of (Standard) Italian" and "dialects and languages of Italy", the latter essentially a geopolitical term, rather than linguistic. There are generally three groups of Italian languages: Gallo-Italian (or Northern Italian); Italo-Dalmatian (which includes Standard Italian); and Southern Romance. Sicilian belongs to the extreme southern portion of the Italo-Dalmatian group, but is sometimes classified as Southern Romance with Sardinian. The linguistic frontier between Northern Italian and Italian proper is sometimes called the La Spezia-Rimini line. Other languages spoken in Italy are not closely related to Standard Italian at all. Since Italian unification, and especially since the Second World War, the Italian language has become the primary language of most Italians and it has undergone a process of homogenisation. Education and mass media, especially television, have rendered the Italian language accessible to all Italian people. Some argue that the same phenomenon has brought about a simplification and banalisation of the language. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Italy) Standard Italian is widely used in the countries of Malta and Somalia. A pidgin Italian can still be heard in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, but has little extension. In Libya , also, its use is now dying out. Relics of a Jewish Italian (see Italkian) survive within Italy; an entire colony of 6,000 Corfu Jews, who used a Venetan dialect (see Venetan language) as a home language, was exterminated during World War II. Origin and History Italian dialects developed from Vulgar Latin, the colloquial language of the late Roman empire. The early texts, reflecting the spoken language of Italy, are written in dialects. Possibly the very first text is a riddle from Verona, dating from perhaps the 8th century, but its interpretation is obscure and its language Latinized. More surely Italian are some 10th-century documents from Monte Cassino, after which there are three Central Italian texts of the 11th century. The first literary work of any length is the Tuscan Ritmo Laurenziano ("Laurentian Rhythm") of the late 12th century, followed soon by other compositions from the Marches and Monte Cassino. In the 13th century, lyric poetry was first written in a conventionalized Sicilian dialect that influenced later developments in central Italy. Standard Italian began to be developed in the 13th and 14th centuries as a literary dialect. At first basically a Florentine dialect, stripped of local peculiarities, it has since acquired some characteristics of the dialect of Rome in particular and has always been heavily influenced by Latin. It overlies a wide variety of dialects, which are sometimes considered to represent a fundamental differentiation between northern and southern Italy that dates from Roman times. Today, however, these variant dialects form a continuum of intelligibility, although geographically distant dialects may be radically different. The northern dialects include what are often called the Gallo-Italian dialects (Piedmontese, Lombard, Ligurian, Emilian-Romagnol); as the influence of a Celtic (Gaulish) substratum is discernible, some linguists consider them separate languages pertaining to the Gallo-Romance Subgroup. The other northern group of dialects, spoken in northeastern Italy, is called Venetan (including Venetian, Veronese, Trevisan, and Paduan dialects, etc.). Istrian, which is spoken on the peninsula now divided between Croatia and Slovenia, with a tiny portion belonging to Italy, is sometimes considered yet another northern Italian dialect, or an independent language of the Balkano-Romance Subgroup. The Tuscan dialects (including those of Corsica) are often held to form a linguistic group of their own, while in the south and east three broad dialect areas are grouped loosely together: (1) the dialects of the Marche (Marchigiano), Umbria, and Rome; (2) Abruzzian, Apulian, Neapolitan, Campanian, and Lucanian; and (3) Calabrian, Otrantan, and Sicilian, which are believed by some to be influenced by the Greek once spoken there (which still survives in isolated pockets on the extreme southern portion of the peninsula). In modern Italy dialects are still the primary spoken idiom, though the standard Italian is virtually the only written language. Speakers of an Italian dialect, even one as superficially different as Sicilian, can with effort understand standard Italian, however, and can even learn it by such means as listening to radio programs. For most Italians their first contact with the standard language comes in primary school, in which until recently it was the only dialect used; standard Italian is virtually the only dialect of culture in modern Italy, and with immigration from the south to the industrial north it is becoming increasingly the language of intercommunication. Italian grammar is like that of the other Western Romance languages, especially similar to the modern French grammar. It shows agreement of adjectives and nouns, the use of definite and indefinite articles, loss of noun declension for case, two genders (masculine and feminine), and an elaborate system of perfect and progressive tenses for the verb. As in French (see...), the compound tenses are constructed with the verb to be (essere) for the intransitive (as morire to die, nascere to be born, partire to depart, venire to come etc.) and pronominal verbs (as lavarsi to wash myself etc.) or with the verb to have (avere) for the transitive verbs. Similar to French, Italian has a partitive article and uses pronominal adverbs. The most notable difference between Italian and French or Spanish is that it does not use -s or -es to form the plural of nouns but instead uses -e for most feminine words and -i for masculine words (and some feminine words). There is a theory that Italian formed in its earliest times the plural mainly with -s as other Romance languages, but a palatalisation phenomenon caused the passages. (http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Italian/Italian.html) BIBLIOGRAPHY A. Books 1. France-Library of Nations; Time-Life Books. Amsterdam, 1984 2. The New Book of Knowledge,Grolier Incorporated,Danbury,Vonnecticut. Volume 9, 2002 3. The New Book of Knowledge,Grolier Incorporated,Danbury,Vonnecticut. Volume 6, 2002 4. Italy -Library of Nations; Time-Life Books. Amsterdam,1985 B. Internet (french.about.com/od/francophonie/a/4_1_05a.htm - 24k – Cached) (http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/French/French.html) www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/january/French.html - 52k – Cached) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Italy) (http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Italian/Italian.html) Read More