Norman language

Spoken in

  • Indo-European Italic Romanesque Gallo-Roman Langues d' oïl Norman

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The Norman language (proper names: Nourmaund, Normaund, Nouormand, Normand, French: Normand ) is a Romance language spoken in northern France in Normandy and the Channel Islands.

Norman has no official status in France because the French language policy recognizes no ethnic minority languages ​​on its territory. Nevertheless, it is, or their variety Jèrriais, regional official language on the British island of Jersey.

The Norman is considered endangered language.

  • 4.1 vowels
  • 4.2 consonants
  • 5.1 conjugation
  • 5.2 declination

Classification

Norman is one of the Langues d' oïl, which together with the Langues d'oc ( Occitan ) and the Provençal language ( Arpitanisch ) belong to the Gallo- Romance languages. Like the other Romance languages ​​are also these varieties from the Latin of the Roman provinces, the so-called Vulgar Latin, emerged. Latin itself belongs to the Italic branch of Indo-European languages ​​, to which, inter alia, the Germanic languages ​​(eg German and English), the Slavic languages ​​(eg Russian), the Indo-Aryan languages ​​(eg Hindi ) or the Greek are counted.

The Norman divided into various dialects, including for example cotentinais, Jerriais, cauchois ( caôcheis ) Guernésiais, sercquiais ( serkyee ) aurignais ( aoeur'gnaeux ).

History of the Norman language

As in many areas conquered by the Romans, the Latin, the indigenous Celtic languages ​​increasingly displaced in Normandy. The vernacular variety of Latin, Vulgar Latin, is the origin of all languages ​​spoken in today's Romania languages, and thus also of Norman. With the conquest of the Scandinavian Normans from 840 impacted the Nordic languages ​​on locally spoken varieties, which is mainly reflected in numerous, still partially preserved today, Scandinavian loanwords. With the conquest of England by the Normans at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 they brought their language to the English court, where she withdrew more and more from the French mainland, and is referred to as Anglo-Norman. Today, the standard French language in France on the one hand and the English exercises on the Channel Islands on the other hand affect the Norman language.

Dialect features

Phonological Features

Norman is not spoken in Normandy, but only in one part of today's Basse -Normandie and Haute -Normandie and beyond in the the English crown imputed Channel Islands of Jersey and Sark. Because political boundaries do not describe the distribution area of language, phonological features are used to distinguish them from the non- Norman neighboring dialects.

The Norman language area is marked by three consonantal language borders that delimit it from other Gallo-Roman idioms. The Nord Norman (along with the Picardy ) from the Südnormanischen and neighboring dialects (eg central French) differs by the absence of shift of / ka / to / ʃa /. So the word for " cat " in the standard French chat / ʃa / and in the common North Norman cat / ka / is called (eg in the spoken dialect on Sark, however kat / kat / )

Examples:

In parallel, the development of the / ga / to / ʒa / in Südnormannischen and in French, but not in the north Norman.

Examples:

The second Konsonantisoglosse also relates to a palatalization, ie, / ke / / ki / and / att / / apt /, etc. of the Spätlatinischen

Examples:

These two isoglosses form the so-called Joret line (), which is so important in northern France as the Benrather line in Germany.

The third isogloss runs through all of northern France and in Normandy, more or less parallel to the other two. It is the language border between the standard French / g / and the corresponding North France / w / or / v /. / v / in the north Norman.

The Norman -speaking world is divided by a Vokalisoglosse of the Picard language area that marks the different development of the Latin long vowel ē. East of this line, the existing in the Middle Ages diphthong has ( finally / wa / in today's French ) further shifted ei / we /. Everywhere in the West of France, he has been retained.

Within the Norman language area, there is another boundary that demarcates the eastern dialects of the Western, so-called " Lower Normandy " (French bas normand ). Here the vulgar Latin short vowel has ŏ before / k / to / ie / developed and not as east of isogloss, and thus also in standard French to / ɥi /. According to this boundary runs approximately from the area east of Honfleur on Argentan until after Passais. Compare this to the different pronunciation of the word for " night " in French nuit / nɥi / and in Jèrriais rivet / njɛ /.

However, here there is disagreement in the research, so take Suchier (1893 ) four major dialect groups of the Norman to " the West Norman, the North Central and South Central Standard [ annische ], the Northeast Norman and the Southeast Norman ". As crucial for an East- West divide he sees the development of Vulgar. / e i / to IE or éi in the west and to / i / in the east.

Lexicon

Before the Vulgar Latin had established itself as the vernacular in France today, there mainly Gallic dialects were spoken. Although these are now extinct, who can get some gallischstämmige loanwords in Norman. The proportion of them is about 2 % of the total vocabulary, and it is with them mainly around concepts, nature, or natural events occur.

By increasing raids of Germanic tribes in the 5th century a lot of Germanic, typically Frankish, words received into French in general and thus also in the Norman collection. Also, Old English loanwords, especially from the field of seafaring 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 William Longsword from 911 also reached many Norse terms in Norman, mainly relating to the seafaring and abstractions.

Furthermore, the Norman retains some old French words that were lost in the French standard today.

These days are also increasingly French and, especially in the Channel Islands, and English words in the language. In Jersey and Sark, where English dominates everyday life, see Speaker of the Norman primarily designations for new ( technical ) English achievements. In the actual Normandy it behaves with respect to the French, similar.

Phonetics

Vowels

The vowels [ ɛ œ ɔ ɑ ] to [œ ɔ ɑ ɛ ] also occur even in nasalisierter form.

With the exception of schwas [ ə ] and [œ ], all vowels, nasally, as by oral, also occur in long form.

Consonants

Grammar

The Norman, as well as the French, a synthetic language with polysynthetic tendencies.

Conjugation

The Norman verb has five conjugations with each of the four tenses present tense, past tense, future tense and the aorist subjunctive and the modes ( in the present tense and past tense ), conditional and imperative. In addition, person and Numbers singular and plural are still distinguished. The other tenses Perfect, Pluperfect, Passé antérieur, conditional perfect as well as the passive are formed by means of auxiliary verbs.

Declination

There is the Norman noun two genera, namely, masculine and feminine, and two numbers, singular and plural. The case is, like, not marked morphologically in almost all Romance languages ​​, but is expressed on Präpositionalkonstruktionen.

Swell

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