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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5400 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 1129 of 1317 11 September 2014 at 11:56pm | IP Logged | ||
All circumflex accents in French are actually dropped s (hospital --> hôpital, isle --> île, etc). I'm surprised to not see "ne point" instead of "ne pas". But yeah, French from that era is much more approchable than English from that era, at least to me. No need to be afraid of trying Molière, the Lumières, etc! I also think that some words that we gained from the Norman invasion stuck around in English that fell into disuse in French so we may have a bit of an advantage on some old vocabulary. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mork the Fiddle Senior Member United States Joined 3978 days ago 86 posts - 159 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 1130 of 1317 12 September 2014 at 12:34am | IP Logged | ||
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Montaigne interests me in part because his essays link to the writings of Seneca and Plutarch. Over the years I pecked away at the 16th century spelling, but recently the game wearied me. A decent translation into modern French exists, so I rely on that. The flavor of Montaigne's philosophy comes through, but without orthographic interference.
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| Sizen Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4348 days ago 165 posts - 347 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Catalan, Spanish, Japanese, Ukrainian, German | Message 1131 of 1317 12 September 2014 at 4:57am | IP Logged | ||
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What a coincidence. I just started a degree in linguistics (sciences du langage) and
one of my classes this semester is on the varieties of French spoken in North-America, which has me reading a fair bit of French from the 16th and 17th century. One of my favourite things I've seen so far is the use of the old base 20 counting system. "Et toute chose que l'on y sème n'est que deux ou trois jours à venir sur terre. Le bled y croist si bien que j'ay compté en une espy de bled six vingtz grains, mesme grain que celluy de France, lequel avoit faict semer Jacques Quartier. Et la terre est si bonne que si vous le semez en mars, il sera mûr à la my aoust." While texts from this period in time are still rather legible (thanks 17th century grammarians for the bang-up job you did of preserving the "correct" French), I seem to remember seeing some 12th or 13th century French in Iversen's log that left me quite perplexed (Don't quote me on the date, it's a fuzzy memory). I found that my knowledge of other Romance languages helped me more than my knowledge of French in that case. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5245 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes
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