Is this how French started?

did she really learn that language from a stroke victim? Is that how it goes in the movie? It's been years since i've seen it and it's on tv right now, but i came in on the middle and don't remember the beginning very well, except i think that they find her laying there with her dead mother? what ever happened to her sister?

I think it would be highly impossible for one person with a speech impediment to influence the creation of a language like French, where the spelling belies the pronunciation. French evovled from Latin, but instead of pure Latin, it was influenced moreso by Vulgar Latin, dialects spoken in Gaul. French spelling is based more on history than on what the word sounds like. Also, I don't really think that there is a disconnection between French spelling and pronunciation, because if you speak French and know the rules of pronunciation, then it makes sense. English is the language in which the spelling and pronunciation are completely out of sync and make no sense most of the time.

LOL
This e-mail was a joke, right? Or are there really morons out there who think that babies learn how to talk by reading a book (or that mothers teach them from books)? Of course the writing has nothing to do with how the language develops, so if the spoken language doesn't look like the written one, then it's the written form which is deviant, not the spoken one.
Duh.

The French language has nothing to do with anyone's speech impediment. It was born out of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th Century AD, being a development of the dialects of Latin spoken in Gaul, influenced by the original Celtic language of the Gauls and the Germanic language of the Frankish invaders. For the first few centuries of its existence, it remained close to Latin and was a purely spoken language, Classical Latin still being used for written purposes. The earliest specimens of written French date from the 9th and 10th centuries AD.

As for the "disconnect" between the written and spoken languages, this came about because the spelling of the language became fossilised, even though the pronounciation changed radically. If you try to read a passage in modern French phonetically, pronouncing every letter, you will probably be pronouncing it close to the way the language was spoken in the Middle Ages, but a modern French person will not understand a word you are saying.

Umm...yeah, English is kind of, you know, the same way.
Ever notice the K in knife, the fact that "-eigh" is prounounced "ay" (as in weigh, neigh, etc.)? Or simply the cruel fact that someone put an "s" im the word lisp? I think it's the same in any language, and this was kind of a stupid question.


Roxanne
1993-2007
You'll always be with me

Letters used to represent sounds are all arbitrary. "eau" for the sound is no less logical than "o". English has the same features. How much sense does "dough" make? Or "ph" for an "f" sound?

But, to answer your beginning question, French, just as Italian, Romanian, Spanish, and Portuguese started out as a dialect of Latin spoken in that area.

I'm sorry but the title of this post had me busting. That was one of the funniest things I have ever read! Thanks.