December 07, 2004
Observations on France:
A (not so) quick thought...
By Jack GrantI'm working on a grand post, but I had a idea that I wanted to toss out there to see what other people thought about it.
In my language lessons, I'm learning how to use pronouns for both direct objects and indirect objects in French. For those who don't recall their English classes (and believe me, I'm having to look stuff up all the time to make sure I understand the differences between English and French), a direct object is a noun or pronoun that receives the action of a verb or shows the result of the action. An indirect object precedes the direct object (in English) and tells to whom or for whom the action of the verb is done and who is receiving the direct object.
Now that the definitions are out of the way, I can talk about the normal word order and what struck me in learning French. In English, the normal order of words, even when using pronouns instead of nouns, is subject-verb-object-object, with the order of the objects depending on the context. In French, when using pronouns for the objects, the order is subject-object-object-verb (with the order of the direct and indirect object determined by which pronoun is being used, the order is dependent upon the pronoun itself). So, in French, there can be a sentence that literally translates (keeping the word order for the formal pronouns), "You him it gave." In English we would say "You gave him it," or more usually adding a preposition, "You gave it to him."
I am getting to a point here, finally. In English, the verb, or the action, precedes the objects of the action. In French, the objects of the action precede the action itself. It seems obvious to me that language affects thought, and thought affects language. Not meaning to drive the point home too much, one could say that English speaking cultures tend to think of the action first, while French speaking cultures tend to think of what is being acted on or to whom the action is occurring first.
Now, put this in the context of the foreign policies of France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and think about it for a while. I'm interested in what you have to say about this.
(NOTE: I took Russian for a while, too, but I can't remember enough of it to recall where the objects landed in sentences. I also don't recall my Spanish well enough, either, but I think the grammar was similar enough to English that the objects, even when pronouns, followed the verbs)
Posted by Jack Grant at 18:24 on 7 December 2004I had to give this more thought. I think what you realized is interesting. Taking 5 years of French, I never thought of the languages at all in any societal context. However, I think I'd need to understand why English structure is the way it is. I thought most of the romance languages were structured the way French is.
Perhaps the English speaking culture's different approach to things has something more to do with isolation. We don't really have 'neighbor's per se as the European countries do, we're such an enormous country. Over in Europe, they're all squished together, having to deal with each other on a regular business. I wonder if our attitudes are more along the lines of the US behaving as the 'stereotype' of the only child, whereas the Europeans countries tend to work more as siblings, even if they squabble. You have to think more of the ramifications of others when there are more to contend with.
Just my train of thought.
Posted by: Boudicca at December 8, 2004 12:14 PMInteresting point. I think linguistic conventions do shape thought processes as they are the handles by which we manipulate those thoughts.
Given that, I recall the literally translated sentence from German: "Throw the horse over the fence some hay."
Posted by: Claire at December 9, 2004 11:39 PMBoudicca - sadly, English word order was pretty much settled by the time the 'enormous country' was settled with English speakers. There has been change since then, sure, but that is possibly the most interesting thing about the English language: how fast it changes compared to other languages. Most changes are in vocabulary, but not all.
Reading e.g. Shakespeare can be a struggle because the meanings of words have changed, or the words have fallen into disuse, and sometimes because the syntax has changed. The former, I thinkl, is far more common than the latter.
