Why did French diverge so much from Latin?

The outside influence that French experienced and the separation it had from its brethren naturally made it diverge from Latin. The influence from the Germanic languages and Gaulish (an ancient Celtic language) is a significant reason why French is different, since it shares features with those languages.

When did French diverge from Latin?

17th century
During the 17th century, French replaced Latin as the most important language of diplomacy and international relations (lingua franca).

When did Italian and French diverge?

After the breakup of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, the dialects spoken in different parts of its territory started to diverge from each other and eventually evolved into dozens of distinct languages by the 9th century AD.

Why does French sound so weird?

The biggest reason for unpronounced letters is that, at one time, the letters were pronounced. One such change is that the last syllable of French words were pronounced less and less historically, which is why today, you often don’t pronounce the last letters in French words.

When did French become the official language of France?

History. The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts of 1539 made French the administrative language of the kingdom of France for legal documents and laws. Previously, official documents were written in medieval Latin, which was the language used by the Roman Catholic Church.

Why did French became the common language of the nation in France?

The main aim of the French revolutionaries was to overthrow the monarchical rule and the ‘Ancien regime’ in France and the establishment of a republican government. German and other languages were discouraged and French became the common language in France during French Revolution.

Is Latin like French?

The French language belongs to the Romance language family, which is a group of languages that all evolved from the language of the Romans, Latin. Each language in the Romance family has since evolved in different directions, and today they’re all quite different from Latin.

Why does French sound so different from other European languages?

You may also consider the fact that French went to ridiculously many periods of apocope that eroded every words down to unrecognizable roots and forced a heavy reanalysis of grammar. That’s enough to make a language pretty different.

Is Spanish closer to Italian or French?

From a grammatical point of view, French is closer to Italian than Spanish. Also, we have more words in common with French than with Spanish. The lexical similarity coefficient for Italian and French is 0.89, whereas for Italian and Spanish it is 0.85.

Is French and Latin different?

Why is Latin not the origin of most languages?

Latin is far from being the origin of most languages, but forms the basis of the Romantic languages of Europe. English borrowed some Latin during the Roman occupation, but Latin was in no way involved with all the languages in, for example, the Philippines or Africa.

Does the French language sound like other Romance languages?

It’s important to note, though, that French isn’t all alone in this regard—in fact, all Gallo-Romance languages have a stronger trend towards innovativeness than the other branches of the Romance family, French I never thought Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese sounded the same. They sound very different from each other, in fact.

How has the French language changed?

Phonologically – that is, in regards to the sound system of the language – French can be considered to have accelerated a number of changes that are happening in other Romance languages as well. The first of these changes is in regards to stress.

When did Canadian French diverge from Parisian French?

Although 18th-century Canadian French was regarded as exceptionally “pure” by metropolitan commentators, it began to diverge from Parisian French after 1760 as a consequence of its isolation from the metropolis and of the ever-stronger influence of English.