Purgatory 2024: Obscene language

1235

Comments

  • Sojourner wrote: »
    Not here it hasn’t. Teat is a rubber thingy on the end of a bottle. Tit is a mammary thingy.

    What do you call the bit of a cow or a goat that you squeeze and pull to get the milk out?
  • Sojourner wrote: »
    Not here it hasn’t. Teat is a rubber thingy on the end of a bottle. Tit is a mammary thingy.

    What do you call the bit of a cow or a goat that you squeeze and pull to get the milk out?

    Udder
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Not here it hasn’t. Teat is a rubber thingy on the end of a bottle. Tit is a mammary thingy.

    What do you call the bit of a cow or a goat that you squeeze and pull to get the milk out?

    Udder

    I thought "udder" was the whole sack, at the bottom of which is the teat/nipple.
  • This thread has been calling out for this video.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyBH5oNQOS0

    NOT SUITABLE FOR WORK!
  • Sojourner wrote: »
    Not here it hasn’t. Teat is a rubber thingy on the end of a bottle. Tit is a mammary thingy.

    What do you call the bit of a cow or a goat that you squeeze and pull to get the milk out?


    A tit

  • I always find it interesting/amusing that the chap in the Canterbury Tales who objected to bad language was suspected of being a Lollard - a heretic.

    The impact of Puritanism in the 17th and 19th centuries had a massive impact on the English language and what is considered 'acceptable'.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited November 2023
    @Sighthound

    The impact of Puritanism in the 17th and 19th centuries had a massive impact on the English language and what is considered 'acceptable'.

    I assume you mean between the 17th and 19th centuries?

    Or do you mean Puritanism was big in the 17th Century, ebbed in the 18th, and had a revival in the 19th? (Which I guess could make sense, with the rally of Methodism and other versions of Non-Conformity in the Victorian period.)
  • Not wanting to resurrect the controversy re 'Fairytale of New York' (the radio version I heard now has 'You're cheap and you're haggard' and while I would prefer 'cheap lousy braggart', I'll go with that.)

    But the thing that surprised me was they distorted the word 'slut' but not 'arse'...

    In both the Pink and Shirley Bassey versions of 'Get The Party Started' they usually distort 'ass' (as in 'you'll be kissing my...') but 'Heart of Glass' by Blondie gets to keep its 'pain in the ass' line.

    Who can fathom the minds of Radio 2 controllers?
  • stetson wrote: »
    @Sighthound

    The impact of Puritanism in the 17th and 19th centuries had a massive impact on the English language and what is considered 'acceptable'.

    I assume you mean between the 17th and 19th centuries?

    Or do you mean Puritanism was big in the 17th Century, ebbed in the 18th, and had a revival in the 19th? (Which I guess could make sense, with the rally of Methodism and other versions of Non-Conformity in the Victorian period.)

    I was thinking of the 17th Century Puritanism and the 19th Century era of sanctimony.

    The 18th Century (and early 19th C) seem to me to be more laid-back. Even Jane Austen slipped the odd risque comment in her works, albeit usually in the mouths of characters like Mary Crawford, whom we are not supposed to admire.

  • Gill H wrote: »
    Not wanting to resurrect the controversy re 'Fairytale of New York' (the radio version I heard now has 'You're cheap and you're haggard' and while I would prefer 'cheap lousy braggart', I'll go with that.)

    But the thing that surprised me was they distorted the word 'slut' but not 'arse'...

    In both the Pink and Shirley Bassey versions of 'Get The Party Started' they usually distort 'ass' (as in 'you'll be kissing my...') but 'Heart of Glass' by Blondie gets to keep its 'pain in the ass' line.

    Who can fathom the minds of Radio 2 controllers?

    Maybe "kiss my ass" is considered more graphic, because it describes an action(which some might even consider sexual, given the general connotations of kissing), whereas "pain in the ass" describes a passive ailment?
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    I would say "slut" is particularly gendered and arguably misogynistic in a way that "arse" is not.
  • Sojourner wrote: »
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Not here it hasn’t. Teat is a rubber thingy on the end of a bottle. Tit is a mammary thingy.

    What do you call the bit of a cow or a goat that you squeeze and pull to get the milk out?


    A tit

    Nope, it is a teat.

    Middle English tete, teet "nipple of a human or animal, woman's breast," borrowed from Anglo-French tete (also continental Old French), either borrowed from West Germanic *tittōn- or an independent Romance formation, both of nursery origin — more at TIT entry 1

  • HeavenlyannieHeavenlyannie Shipmate
    edited December 2023
    I was amused when I first read the word ‘slut’ in the Roald Dahl Cinderella poem, which I read to my children. I was aware the old word was short for slattern which meant a dirty untidy woman but wondered how many parents would only know the modern meaning which suggests a promiscuous woman (obviously these meanings overlap). Both misogynistic, of course.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    I was amused when I first read the word ‘slut’ in the Roald Dahl Cinderella poem, which I read to my children. I was aware the old word was short for slattern which meant a dirty untidy woman but wondered how many parents would only know the modern meaning which suggests a promiscuous woman (obviously these meanings overlap). Both misogynistic, of course.
    That's interesting. To me, I'd say the normal meaning of 'slut' is still definitely slattern.

    It's always been derogatory, but I'd never have thought of it as a forbidden word.
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Not here it hasn’t. Teat is a rubber thingy on the end of a bottle. Tit is a mammary thingy.

    What do you call the bit of a cow or a goat that you squeeze and pull to get the milk out?


    A tit

    Nope, it is a teat.

    Middle English tete, teet "nipple of a human or animal, woman's breast," borrowed from Anglo-French tete (also continental Old French), either borrowed from West Germanic *tittōn- or an independent Romance formation, both of nursery origin — more at TIT entry 1

    Teat to you, Gramps old son, tit to me. This is a thread about obscene ( what a bloody joke, vulgar more like) language to me.

    Teat in these parts is a rubber thingy on the business end of a baby bottle.

    Tit is a fleshy thingy I used to whip out of the bra to silence a fractious infant.

  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    I was amused when I first read the word ‘slut’ in the Roald Dahl Cinderella poem, which I read to my children. I was aware the old word was short for slattern which meant a dirty untidy woman but wondered how many parents would only know the modern meaning which suggests a promiscuous woman (obviously these meanings overlap). Both misogynistic, of course.

    Something for which Dahl, of course, had serious form.
  • Enoch wrote: »
    I was amused when I first read the word ‘slut’ in the Roald Dahl Cinderella poem, which I read to my children. I was aware the old word was short for slattern which meant a dirty untidy woman but wondered how many parents would only know the modern meaning which suggests a promiscuous woman (obviously these meanings overlap). Both misogynistic, of course.
    That's interesting. To me, I'd say the normal meaning of 'slut' is still definitely slattern.

    It's always been derogatory, but I'd never have thought of it as a forbidden word.

    Wow. Really? Slut has always meant someone easy with her favours in my 50+ years.
  • ArielAriel Shipmate
    I've heard gay men use "slut" about other men.
  • HeavenlyannieHeavenlyannie Shipmate
    edited December 2023
    (Reply to KarlLB) Same here. I remember using the word slut as a teenager and my mother being horrified.
  • (Reply to KarlLB) Same here. I remember using the word slut as a teenager and my mother being horrified.

    In Canada, I also only ever heard "slut" to mean a women who has supposedly too many sexual partners.
  • Enoch wrote: »
    I was amused when I first read the word ‘slut’ in the Roald Dahl Cinderella poem, which I read to my children. I was aware the old word was short for slattern which meant a dirty untidy woman but wondered how many parents would only know the modern meaning which suggests a promiscuous woman (obviously these meanings overlap). Both misogynistic, of course.
    That's interesting. To me, I'd say the normal meaning of 'slut' is still definitely slattern.

    It's always been derogatory, but I'd never have thought of it as a forbidden word.
    Like others who’ve posted, I’ve never heard slut used to mean slattern. In fact, I’ve only learned the word slattern reading this thread. Slut, in my experience in the US, always means a promiscuous person, usually a woman.

  • I think it's a generational thing.

    I can't prove it but suspect that the misogynistic sexual connotation ran alongside the older 'slatternly' meaning for some time before overtaking it.

    My guess would be that the sexual connotation began to overtake the other meaning from the 1960s onwards.

    It certainly had the sexual meaning when I was at school in the 1970s but I'd imagine it would have carried the older 'slatternly' meaning more strongly during the 20s, 30s and 40s.
  • I think it's a generational thing.
    I think it may also be a geographical thing. As I mentioned, slattern and slatternly were totally unfamiliar to me until this thread.

  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    For describing behaviour/appearance that was slovenly with overtones of sexual incontinence, the word I grew up with was 'trollopy'.
  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    I think it's a generational thing.
    I think it may also be a geographical thing. As I mentioned, slattern and slatternly were totally unfamiliar to me until this thread.

    Possibly. I'm too bone idle to check the derivation but 'slattern' and 'slatternly' sound Tudor/Jacobean or earlier to me so I'm surprised they didn't make it across the Pond.

    They sound like the kind of words that might have hung on in the West of England or up in Yorkshire longer than than the rest of the country.

    Mind you, away from vulgar or obscene language now, I was surprised that American friends didn't know the term 'doddery' to refer to older people with mobility problems - 'my doddery old mother in law.'

    @Firenze - 'trollop' had connotations of prostitution where I grew up. I rarely heard it as an adjective or adverb. Mind you, it wasn't common as a noun and was quite old-fashioned by the time I encountered it.
  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    I think it's a generational thing.
    I think it may also be a geographical thing. As I mentioned, slattern and slatternly were totally unfamiliar to me until this thread.

    Possibly. I'm too bone idle to check the derivation but 'slattern' and 'slatternly' sound Tudor/Jacobean or earlier to me so I'm surprised they didn't make it across the Pond.
    It well may have. And it might have subsequently fallen out of use. It happens.

    Or my experience may not be typical for the US as a whole. It’s a big country, and vocabulary and word usage can vary. For example, doddery is very familiar to me, though doddering would be more common.

  • @Nick Tamen
    doddery is very familiar to me, though doddering would be more common.

    I'm VERY familiar with "doddering", but have never, to my recollection, heard "doddery", either in Canada or the general anglosphere media.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    edited December 2023
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Not here it hasn’t. Teat is a rubber thingy on the end of a bottle. Tit is a mammary thingy.

    What do you call the bit of a cow or a goat that you squeeze and pull to get the milk out?


    A tit

    Nope, it is a teat.

    Middle English tete, teet "nipple of a human or animal, woman's breast," borrowed from Anglo-French tete (also continental Old French), either borrowed from West Germanic *tittōn- or an independent Romance formation, both of nursery origin — more at TIT entry 1

    Teat to you, Gramps old son, tit to me. This is a thread about obscene ( what a bloody joke, vulgar more like) language to me.

    Teat in these parts is a rubber thingy on the business end of a baby bottle.

    Tit is a fleshy thingy I used to whip out of the bra to silence a fractious infant.

    I think you missed my point--how teat is from the French word, and tit is Germanic.

    My dairyman grandfather always used teat in referring to bovine anatomy, tit in referring to human anatomy.

    The two words in and of themselves are not obscene, in my book; however, the context in which they are used can be obscene.

    I think we need to desensitize certian anatomical words because they give kids, especially female kids, the impression their bodies are dirty.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited December 2023
    stetson wrote: »
    @Nick Tamen
    doddery is very familiar to me, though doddering would be more common.

    I'm VERY familiar with "doddering", but have never, to my recollection, heard "doddery", either in Canada or the general anglosphere media.

    Doddery is commonplace here. "Granny will need help getting up from the sofa - she's a bit doddery these days".
  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    I think it's a generational thing.
    I think it may also be a geographical thing. As I mentioned, slattern and slatternly were totally unfamiliar to me until this thread.

    Possibly. I'm too bone idle to check the derivation but 'slattern' and 'slatternly' sound Tudor/Jacobean or earlier to me so I'm surprised they didn't make it across the Pond.
    It well may have. And it might have subsequently fallen out of use. It happens.

    Or my experience may not be typical for the US as a whole. It’s a big country, and vocabulary and word usage can vary. For example, doddery is very familiar to me, though doddering would be more common.

    Sure. It happens with other things too, of course. For instance I've heard that the ale drunk by the colonists was initially very similar to what was drunk over here at that time but gradually it changed under Dutch and German influence. Not that British beers haven't evolved since the 1600s/1700s. Bitter ale only developed in the 19th century for instance yet we think of it being around since Adam was a lad.

    So yes, 'slattern' and 'slatternly' may have died out. They aren't common parlance here any more either.

    Both 'doddering' and 'doddery' are common here but a friend in Pennsylvania hadn't heard either. As you say, a big country.

  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited December 2023
    @Gramps49

    My dairyman grandfather always used teat in referring to bovine anatomy, tit in referring to human anatomy.

    The two words in and of themselves are not obscene, in my book; however, the context in which they are used can be obscene.

    Personally, there is no situation where I would use "tits" without intending it as humourous or vulgar. It's roughly the equivalent of "shit": not excessively offensive, but still with an aura of inappropriateness.
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Not here it hasn’t. Teat is a rubber thingy on the end of a bottle. Tit is a mammary thingy.

    What do you call the bit of a cow or a goat that you squeeze and pull to get the milk out?


    A tit

    Nope, it is a teat.

    Middle English tete, teet "nipple of a human or animal, woman's breast," borrowed from Anglo-French tete (also continental Old French), either borrowed from West Germanic *tittōn- or an independent Romance formation, both of nursery origin — more at TIT entry 1

    Teat to you, Gramps old son, tit to me. This is a thread about obscene ( what a bloody joke, vulgar more like) language to me.

    Teat in these parts is a rubber thingy on the business end of a baby bottle.

    Tit is a fleshy thingy I used to whip out of the bra to silence a fractious infant.
    I think you missed my point--how teat is from the French word, and tit is Germanic.
    They’re both Germanic, one coming through Old English and one coming through Old French.

    Remember that the Franks were Germanic, as were the Normans, which is why it’s sometimes been remarked that while English is the most Latin of Germanic languages, French is the most Germanic of Romance languages.

  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Not here it hasn’t. Teat is a rubber thingy on the end of a bottle. Tit is a mammary thingy.

    What do you call the bit of a cow or a goat that you squeeze and pull to get the milk out?


    A tit

    Nope, it is a teat.

    Middle English tete, teet "nipple of a human or animal, woman's breast," borrowed from Anglo-French tete (also continental Old French), either borrowed from West Germanic *tittōn- or an independent Romance formation, both of nursery origin — more at TIT entry 1

    Teat to you, Gramps old son, tit to me. This is a thread about obscene ( what a bloody joke, vulgar more like) language to me.

    Teat in these parts is a rubber thingy on the business end of a baby bottle.

    Tit is a fleshy thingy I used to whip out of the bra to silence a fractious infant.
    I think you missed my point--how teat is from the French word, and tit is Germanic.
    They’re both Germanic, one coming through Old English and one coming through Old French.

    Remember that the Franks were Germanic, as were the Normans, which is why it’s sometimes been remarked that while English is the most Latin of Germanic languages, French is the most Germanic of Romance languages.

    I do remember an old story that said as one moved further east from Paris, the native French would become more Germanic.
  • SighthoundSighthound Shipmate
    edited December 2023
    Sure. It happens with other things too, of course. For instance I've heard that the ale drunk by the colonists was initially very similar to what was drunk over here at that time but gradually it changed under Dutch and German influence. Not that British beers haven't evolved since the 1600s/1700s. Bitter ale only developed in the 19th century for instance yet we think of it being around since Adam was a lad.

    In England, ale was brewed without hops.

    In the fifteenth century, hops were (initially) imported from the Low Countries and a new drink developed called 'beer'. There were attempts to ban 'beer' as impure and wicked, but it gradually established itself as the norm.

    In England now ale seems to mean, or imply cask-conditioned beer. I think one would struggle to find any brewed without hops.

    Tidied quoting code. BroJames, Purgatory Host[/sup
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited December 2023
    Sighthound wrote: »
    Sure. It happens with other things too, of course. For instance I've heard that the ale drunk by the colonists was initially very similar to what was drunk over here at that time but gradually it changed under Dutch and German influence. Not that British beers haven't evolved since the 1600s/1700s. Bitter ale only developed in the 19th century for instance yet we think of it being around since Adam was a lad.

    In England, ale was brewed without hops.

    In the fifteenth century, hops were (initially) imported from the Low Countries and a new drink developed called 'beer'. There were attempts to ban 'beer' as impure and wicked, but it gradually established itself as the norm.

    In England now ale seems to mean, or imply cask-conditioned beer. I think one would struggle to find any brewed without hops.

    This is a popular myth. Ale brewers were indeed prevented by various edicts from using hops, but that was to distinguish their craft from that of beer brewers. Neither hops nor beer were banned, nor were there attempts to do so.

    https://zythophile.co.uk/false-ale-quotes/myth-two-hops-were-forbidden-by-henry-vi/
  • Indeed. Thanks for the myth-busting, @KarlLB.

    I am aware that medieval ales weren't hoppy but my impression is that ales would have been hopped by the time the eastern seaboard of what is now the USA was colonised.

    Most 17th and 18th century ales would have been like porters or stouts I would imagine.

    @Nick Tamen and @Gramps49, well the Normans originated in Scandinavia, hence the name 'Nor(th)man.' That's kind of Germanic but not as Germanic as what is now Germany.

    I've not heard that French becomes 'more Germanic' as you go east of Paris but I know there is Dutch and Walloon influence on the Burgundian dialect. Regional dialects have largely died out in France but there will of course be overlaps and borrowings as you get close to the German border (Alsace particularly) and also along the borders of Spain and Italy.
  • @Nick Tamen and @Gramps49, well the Normans originated in Scandinavia, hence the name 'Nor(th)man.' That's kind of Germanic but not as Germanic as what is now Germany.
    The point is that the Franks and the Normans both originally spoke Germanic languages, and Germanic influences from those languages remained even as those Germanic languages gave way to Romance languages. Teat is one example of Germanic influence on French. For that matter, France and française are also examples, as both are derived from the Germanic Frank.

  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    Many years ago in a train somewhere near Chamonix, on the border between France and French speaking Switzerland I heard a mother talking to her child in what was definitely French but was pronounced as though it was German, with syllables at the ends of words that French normally drops, pronounced in full. 'Les fraises' (the strawberries) came out as 'lez fraisez'.

  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    @Nick Tamen and @Gramps49, well the Normans originated in Scandinavia, hence the name 'Nor(th)man.' That's kind of Germanic but not as Germanic as what is now Germany.
    The point is that the Franks and the Normans both originally spoke Germanic languages, and Germanic influences from those languages remained even as those Germanic languages gave way to Romance languages. Teat is one example of Germanic influence on French. For that matter, France and française are also examples, as both are derived from the Germanic Frank.

    Yes, of course.

    Frankish was a Germanic language as was whatever form of Old Norse the Normans originally spoke before it evolved into Norman-French. So yes, you are right.
  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    @Nick Tamen and @Gramps49, well the Normans originated in Scandinavia, hence the name 'Nor(th)man.' That's kind of Germanic but not as Germanic as what is now Germany.
    The point is that the Franks and the Normans both originally spoke Germanic languages, and Germanic influences from those languages remained even as those Germanic languages gave way to Romance languages. Teat is one example of Germanic influence on French. For that matter, France and française are also examples, as both are derived from the Germanic Frank.

    Yes, of course.

    Frankish was a Germanic language as was whatever form of Old Norse the Normans originally spoke before it evolved into Norman-French. So yes, you are right.

    Neither Old Norse nor Frankish evolved into Norman or any other form of French. They influenced the Gallo-Romance Proto-French being spoken there, but French in all its forms remains at its heart a Romance language.
  • In the early 90s, Edith Cresson, Francois Mitterand's buffoonish Prime Minister, insulted, by her lights, the UK by saying that
    there were more British than French homosexuals because homosexuality is not a "Latin" phenomenon.

    An anglosphere media commentator opined that "the French persist in the belief that they are Latin", despite actually being Celtic and Germanic(I think it was). I suppose having a Germanic language would aid in that delusion, if a delusion it is.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Enoch wrote: »
    I was amused when I first read the word ‘slut’ in the Roald Dahl Cinderella poem, which I read to my children. I was aware the old word was short for slattern which meant a dirty untidy woman but wondered how many parents would only know the modern meaning which suggests a promiscuous woman (obviously these meanings overlap). Both misogynistic, of course.
    That's interesting. To me, I'd say the normal meaning of 'slut' is still definitely slattern.

    It's always been derogatory, but I'd never have thought of it as a forbidden word.

    That's certainly the derivation of "slut", but I don't recall hearing slattern used in speech here - it's always been slut.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited December 2023
    stetson wrote: »
    In the early 90s, Edith Cresson, Francois Mitterand's buffoonish Prime Minister, insulted, by her lights, the UK by saying that
    there were more British than French homosexuals because homosexuality is not a "Latin" phenomenon.

    An anglosphere media commentator opined that "the French persist in the belief that they are Latin", despite actually being Celtic and Germanic(I think it was). I suppose having a Germanic language would aid in that delusion, if a delusion it is.

    People often get confused between ancestry and language. The French are presumably mostly descended from the Gauls, who had a Celtic language, with some Franks and Norse (West and North Germanic respectively) but French is a Romance language.

    It's a little bit like Ireland but 1500 years earlier, with the Romans/Latin in place of British/English. The spread of a language does not automatically imply large scale movements of people
  • It is much like the use of English in India. The fact that a good number of people who live in India speak English doesn't mean a mass movement ofEnglish people to that country.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited December 2023
    Forthview wrote: »
    It is much like the use of English in India. The fact that a good number of people who live in India speak English doesn't mean a mass movement ofEnglish people to that country.

    A bit, although English is more a Lingua Franca - everyone's second languages - rather than having ousted the local languages. Had the British Empire lasted as long as the Roman perhaps it would have done - it's a sort of first stage. But yes, it illustrates how communities can change language without population movement.

    Another example is the Isle of Man - Brythonic, then Norse, then Gaelic, then English in around 2000 years.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    @Nick Tamen and @Gramps49, well the Normans originated in Scandinavia, hence the name 'Nor(th)man.' That's kind of Germanic but not as Germanic as what is now Germany.
    The point is that the Franks and the Normans both originally spoke Germanic languages, and Germanic influences from those languages remained even as those Germanic languages gave way to Romance languages. Teat is one example of Germanic influence on French. For that matter, France and française are also examples, as both are derived from the Germanic Frank.

    Yes, of course.

    Frankish was a Germanic language as was whatever form of Old Norse the Normans originally spoke before it evolved into Norman-French. So yes, you are right.

    Neither Old Norse nor Frankish evolved into Norman or any other form of French. They influenced the Gallo-Romance Proto-French being spoken there, but French in all its forms remains at its heart a Romance language.

    Sure, what I should have said was, 'Before they began speaking a Norman form of French.'

    Sorry. I was being slipshod.

    From what I can gather it wasn't long before the Normans started speaking a form of French rather than Norse.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    @Nick Tamen and @Gramps49, well the Normans originated in Scandinavia, hence the name 'Nor(th)man.' That's kind of Germanic but not as Germanic as what is now Germany.
    The point is that the Franks and the Normans both originally spoke Germanic languages, and Germanic influences from those languages remained even as those Germanic languages gave way to Romance languages. Teat is one example of Germanic influence on French. For that matter, France and française are also examples, as both are derived from the Germanic Frank.

    Yes, of course.

    Frankish was a Germanic language as was whatever form of Old Norse the Normans originally spoke before it evolved into Norman-French. So yes, you are right.

    Neither Old Norse nor Frankish evolved into Norman or any other form of French. They influenced the Gallo-Romance Proto-French being spoken there, but French in all its forms remains at its heart a Romance language.

    Sure, what I should have said was, 'Before they began speaking a Norman form of French.'

    Sorry. I was being slipshod.

    From what I can gather it wasn't long before the Normans started speaking a form of French rather than Norse.

    Not long at all. A disgrace to the name Norseman, that lot.
  • Ibelieve it was a condition of the peacentreeaty that they accept French sovereignty and adopted the French language.
  • Eirenist wrote: »
    Ibelieve it was a condition of the peacentreeaty that they accept French sovereignty and adopted the French language.

    Peace treaty? Norsemen? Their peace treaties were usually "you give us all your stuff and we'll stop killing you."
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Eirenist wrote: »
    Ibelieve it was a condition of the peacentreeaty that they accept French sovereignty and adopted the French language.

    Peace treaty? Norsemen? Their peace treaties were usually "you give us all your stuff and we'll stop killing you."

    Hey now, Danegeld wasn't all the Saxons' stuff.
Sign In or Register to comment.