Norman language
| Norman | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Spoken in |
Normandy , Guernsey , Jersey , Sark | |
| speaker | approx. 100,000 | |
| Linguistic classification |
||
| Official status | ||
| Official language in | Jersey ( Jèrriais ) | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639 -1 |
- |
|
| ISO 639 -2 | ( B ) - | ( T ) - |
| ISO 639-3 | ||
The Norman language (proper names: Normaund , French Normand ) is a Romance language that is spoken in Northern France in Normandy and on the Channel Islands .
Norman has no official status in France as French language policy does not recognize ethnic minority languages on its territory. In contrast, the Norman language, or its variety Jèrriais , is the regional official language on the British island of Jersey .
Norman is considered an endangered language .
classification
Norman belongs to the Langues d'oïl , which, together with the Franco-Provencal language (Arpitan), belongs to the Gallo-Roman language. Like the other Romance languages, these varieties also emerged from the Latin of the Roman provinces, the so-called Vulgar Latin . Latin itself belongs to the Italian branch of the Indo-European languages , which also include the Germanic languages (e.g. German and English), the Slavic languages (e.g. Russian), the Indo-Aryan languages (e.g. Hindi) or the Greek to be counted.
Norman is divided into various dialects, including cotentinais, jerriais , cauchois ( caôcheis ), guernésiais , sercquiais ( serkyee ), aurignais ( aoeur'gnaeux ).
History of the Norman Language
As in many areas conquered by the Romans, Latin has increasingly replaced the autochthonous Celtic languages in Normandy . The vernacular variety of Latin, Vulgar Latin, is the origin of all languages spoken in Romania today, including Norman. With the conquest of the Scandinavian Normans from 840 onwards, the Nordic languages also had an impact on the varieties spoken there, which is reflected above all in numerous Scandinavian loanwords, some of which are still preserved today. With the conquest of England by the Normans at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 they brought their language to the English court, where they become more and more distant from the mainland French and the Anglo-Norman is called. Today the standard French language in France on the one hand and English in the Channel Islands on the other hand exert an influence on the Norman language.
Dialect features
Phonological features
Norman is spoken in Normandy, but only in part of what is now Normandy and also on the Channel Islands of Jersey and Sark, which are under the English crown. Since political boundaries do not describe the area of distribution of the language, phonological features are used to distinguish them from the non-Norman neighboring dialects.
The Norman-speaking area is marked by three consonantic isoglosses that distinguish it from other Gallo-Roman idioms. The North Normandy (together with the Picard ) differs from the Südnormannischen and neighboring dialects (z. B. Central French) by the lack of displacement of / ka / to / ʃa /. The word for “cat” is called chat / ʃa / in standard French and cat / ka / in common northern Norman (e.g. kat / kat / in the dialect spoken in Sark ).
Examples:
- "Candle": French chandelle , Norman caundelle (> English candle )
Parallel to this is the development of / ga / to / Süda / in South Norman and in French, but not in North Norman.
Examples:
- "Garden": French jardin , Norman gardin (> English garden )
The second consonant isogloss also relates to a palatalization, ie, / ke / / ki / and / att / / apt / etc., of late Latin.
Examples:
- " Drive out", "hunt": lat. * Captiare , French chasser , Norman cachi (> English catch )
- "Cherry": French cerise , Norman cherise (> English cherries → cherry )
- " Lichens ": lat. * Plectiāre , old French plaissier ( plessage ), Norman pllaichaer, pllêchi (> English pleach )
These two isoglosses form the so-called Joret line . The third isogloss runs through the whole of northern France and is more or less parallel to the other two in Normandy. It is the border between the standard / central French / g / and the corresponding northern French / w / or / v / in northern Norman.
The Norman-speaking area is divided from the Picardy-speaking area by a vowel closure, which marks the different development of the Latin long vowel ē . East of this line, the diphthong ei to / we / (finally to / wa / in today's French) , which was still present in the Middle Ages, has shifted . It has been retained throughout western France.
Within the Norman-speaking area there is another border that separates the eastern dialects from the western, so-called "Lower Norman" (French bas normand ). Here the vulgar Latin short vowel ŏ developed before / k / to / ie / and not to / ɥi / as east of the isogloss, and thus also in standard French. This sound boundary runs roughly from the area east of Honfleur via Argentan to Passais . Compare the different pronunciation of the word for “night” in French nuit / nɥi / and in Jèrriais niet / njɛ /.
However, there is disagreement in research here, so Suchier assumed four main dialect groups of Norman in 1893: "West Norman, North Central and South Central Norm [Annish], Northeast Norman and Southeast Norman". He sees the development from vulgar Latin / e + i / to ié or éi in the west and to / i / in the east as decisive for an east-west division .
Dictionary
Before Vulgar Latin had established itself as a popular language in what is now France, mainly Gallic dialects were spoken there. Although these are now extinct, some loanwords of Gallic origin have been preserved in Norman. They make up around 2% of the total vocabulary and are mainly terms that describe nature or natural events.
As a result of increasing raids by Germanic tribes in the 5th century, a large number of Germanic, usually Frankish , words found their way into French in general and thus also into Norman. Also old English borrowing, in particular in the field of navigation are due to Anglo-Saxon raids.
With the beginning of the invasion of Normandy by the Normans from 840 and with the further conquests by Rollo and his successor Wilhelm Langschwert from 911, many Old Norse terms also found their way into Norman, which mainly relate to seafaring and abstractions .
Furthermore, the Norman has retained some old French words that have been lost in the French standard today.
Nowadays, French and, especially on the Channel Islands, also English words are increasingly being used. On Jersey and Sark, where English dominates everyday life, speakers of Norman mainly use English to describe new (technical) achievements. In Normandy proper, the situation is similar with regard to French.
phonetics
Vowels
| front | central | back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| closed | i y | u | |
| almost closed | ɪ ʏ | ʊ | |
| half closed | e ø | O | |
| medium | ə | ||
| half open | ɛ œ | ||
| open | a | ɑ |
The vowels [ɛ œ ɔ ɑ] can also occur in nasalized form [ɛ̃ œ̃ ɔ̃ ɑ̃].
With the exception of the Schwas [ə] and [œ], all vowels, nasal and oral, can also appear in long form.
Consonants
| bilabial |
labio- dental |
dental | alveolar |
post- alveolar |
labio- palatal |
palatal |
labio- velar |
velar | uvular | glottal | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | |
| Plosives | p | b | t | d | k | G | ||||||||||||||||
| Nasals | m | n | ɲ | |||||||||||||||||||
| Vibrants | ʀ | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Fricatives | f | v | ( ð 1 ) | s | z | ʃ | ʒ | h 2 | ||||||||||||||
| Approximants | ɥ | j | w | |||||||||||||||||||
| Lateral approximants | l | ʎ | ||||||||||||||||||||
- The voiced dental fricative [ð] occurs only in Jèrriais.
- In contrast to French, the Norman language has the voiceless glottal fricative [h]. It has been preserved there and appears where in the French. Written language a h is written. However, it is in variation with [ʀ].
grammar
Like French, Norman is a synthetic language with polysynthetic tendencies.
conjugation
The Norman verb conjugations has five each with the four tenses present tense , past tense , future tense and Aorist and modes subjunctive (in the present tense and past tense), conditional and imperative . In addition, a distinction is made between person and the numbers singular and plural. The other tenses Perfect , perfect progressive , Passé antérieur , conditional perfect as well as the passive be formed by means of auxiliary verbs.
declination
There are two genera in the Norman noun , namely masculine and feminine, and two numbers, singular and plural. The case is how, not marked morphologically in almost all Romance languages, but is expressed via prepositional.
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Du caractère et de l'expansion des parlers normands , Charles Joret, 1883.
- ↑ Phonétique of parlers normands , René Lepelley 1978th
- ↑ This so-called Picardic influence also affects the north of the Caux area and a large part of the Norman Bray area .
- ↑ Études Normandes, linguistique et société: du cauchois au normand , Revue trimestrielle N ° 3 - 1982, FJ Gay.
- ↑ Liddicoat, Anthony: A Grammar of the Norman French of the Channel Islands . Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter 1994 (= Mouton Grammar Library Vol. 13 ). Pages 2 and 35.
- ↑ quoted from: Rössler, Gerda: On the problem of the structure of northwestern Norman vocalism . (The dialects of the Département de la Manche) . Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag 1970. Page 33ff.
- ↑ Liddicoat (1994). Celtic loanwords: page 289f. and 296; Germanic loanwords: pp. 291–296
- ↑ Liddicoat (1994): pp. 296-300
- ^ Maury, Nicole: Système vocalique d'un parler normand . Phonétique et Phonologie . Ottawa: Marcel Didier (Canada) Ltée 1976 (= Studia Phonetica Vol. 11 ).
- ↑ Maury (1976): p. 9ff.
