Transcript A Linguistic Exploration of German and French

By Marcal/Joachim
Lucas Verardo
Some Important Terms
Phonology- The study of sound patterns
in a language
 Morphology- The study of word
formation of a language
 Case- Any addition to a noun stem to
change its meaning
 Syntax- General term for layout of
grammar and word order

Indo-European
Evolved 7000 B.C. in present-day
Ukraine
 Spread to Europe and Asia by 2500 B.C.
 Became the root of many major
languages
 Proto-Indo-European
 Common Indo-European

Characteristics





Case SystemConsisted of 8
cases.
5 vowel sounds
Inflected
pronunciation
Six verb tenses
Flexible word order
(SOV)



3 voices: Active,
passive, and middle
(reflexive)
5 Moods: Indicative,
Subjunctive,
Optative, Imperative,
Injunctive
3 Genders
Branches of Indo-European
Twelve major branches, only ten have
surviving languages
 Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Baltic, Hellenic,
Illyric, Thracian, Iranian, Indic, and
Romance
 Two extinct branches; Anatolian and
Tokharian

Proto-Germanic
Earliest evolution of Germanic branch
languages
 Believed to have used a system of runes
as ideographs
 Elder Futhark
 Eventually evolved an alphabet
 No writings ever found

German
Considered a root language of the
Germanic branch
 Broke apart- First and Second Germanic
Sound Shifts
 Shifts cause a number of distinct
dialects to appear

German vs. Indo-European
Germanic contains three genders
 Only contains 4 cases: Nominative,
Accusative, Genitive and Dative
 Verbs conjugate into three moods, two
voices, and six tenses
 Word order
 Separable prefixes

German Dialects


High GermanSpoken by a
majority of Germans
Low GermanEvolved in the
Lowlands. Different
enough in form to be
regarded bilingual.

Four main varieties:
Hochdeutch (High
German),
Mitteldeutch (Middle
German),
Niederdeutch (Low
German) and
Plattdeutch (Flat
German)
French
First language of 77 million speakers
 3rd most spoken language in the EU
after German and English
 Sixteen possible vowel sounds
 Five distinct accents: aigu, grave, le
trema, la circonflex, and la cedille

French Evolution
Began evolving in 57 B.C.
 Romans invade area known as Gaul,
populated by Celts at the time.
 Later, Germanic Franks invaded
Northern France.
 Surviving Latin combined with Frankish
and Celtic languages

French vs. Indo-European
Only two genders for nouns
 No surviving case system
 Verbs are conjugated with 7 moods, 5
tenses, and 3 voices.
 Moderate inflection
 Semi-rigid word order

What’s the Big Difference?
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Case System
Three noun genders
Flexible word order
No accent markings
German

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No case system
Two noun genders
Rigid word order
Five accents
French
Similarities
French and German have several
similarities.
 Phonologically similar
 Morphological similarities- mostly shared
vocabulary
 Verb tenses and moods
 Sentence structure

Works cited

http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~hr/lang/dthist.html
http://www.alsintl.com/resources/languages
/German/
http://www.krysstal.com/langfams_indoeuro
.html
http://www.discoverfrance.net/France/Lang
uage/DF_language.shtml
http://f99.middlebury.edu/RU232A/STUDE
NTS/matranga/history.htm
http://www.frenchlanguageguide.com/frenc
h/facts/history/