Posts Tagged english translation
French English Translation: the Clash of Roots and Grooves
One would think that the fair number of commonalities between English and French would help make French English translation simpler. Both are subject-prominent languages and have word orders that are relatively fixed as SVO (subject-verb-object). Literary traditions, however, also play a large role in translating between the two languages, and here they differ enormously.
English and French are both Indo-European languages, English deriving from the Germanic branch and French from the Italic. English is the only Germanic languages that does not have V2 word order (that is, syntax that requires the verb to be in the second position in the sentence) while French is the only Italic language that is not a null subject language (that is, the subject of the sentence can be dropped because it is implied by the verb’s conjugation). Out on separate branches of the Indo-European tree, both French and English have become relatively strict, subject-prominent SVO languages that no longer inflect as much as Old Germanic or Classical Latin did. Nonetheless, remnants from the past, other possible syntactical structures, still exist in both languages:
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French/english Translation: the Unusual History of the English Language
Along with the other major languages of Western Europe, both English and French are descendants of proto-Indo-European. English is a Teutonic language, derivative of proto-Germanic via West Germanic (along with Dutch, Yiddish and German); French is a Romance language, derivative of proto-Italic via Latin (along with Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan and Romanian). Though French and English are long-since separated on the Indo-European genealogy, the complex history of English and the role French plays in this chronicle create a few interesting issues in French/English translation.
English is frequently depicted as a Germanic language with a Romance lexicon. Old English started out as the language of various tribes of northern Europe – the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons – who strayed to the British Isles and dislodged the Celts. Once the Normans had appropriated England in 1066, Norman French became the language of the royal court, relegating English to the lingo of the common folks. As usage was confined to the day-to-day in this time period, English pared itself down and turned into Middle English, the language of Geoffrey Chaucer. The Normans retained command of the British throne for more than 300 years and, as they reigned, many words rolled into English. By the time English got back into favor as the main language of the Isles, it had metamorphosed into Early Modern English, the language in which William Shakespeare composed his sonnets and dramas. It is reckoned that from one quarter to one third of modern-day English vocabulary is descended from French.
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