hellog〜英語史ブログ / 2010-05-27

■ #395. 英語のロマンス語化についての評 [romancisation]

　[2010-05-24-1]の記事で，英語がロマンス語化したことについて Gachelin の評を引用した．英語にとってフランス語はラテン語やギリシャ語を隠蔽したトロイの木馬であるという見解は，優れた比喩として他書でも引用されているのを読んだことがある．Gachelin は論文中でこの名言を発するまでに，自らも類似した評をいろいろと漁ったようで，その論文は一種の英語のロマンス語化についての語録とでもいうべきものになっている．
　そのまま引用しておけばいずれ何かで利用できるかもしれないと思ったので，下にいくつか挙げておく．Gachelin が引用している元の文献の書誌は省略．

In Lezzioni sul lessico inglese (p. 53), V. Pisani underlines the Romance character of English, due pre-eminently to all those French loan-words giving the language 'un aspetto in parte net-latino', which in its own turn increases the 'facilità di acclimatazzione' of Latin words, exactly as in a genuine Romance speech. (Gachelin 10)

English has dived into the Latin stream, 'both naked and wearing the clothes of Old French' (Burgess, Language Made Plain, p. 169), . . . . (Gachelin 11)

On 22 Feb 1850, Thomas Watt read a paper to the Philological Society, 'On the probable future position of the English language', in which he stated that 'English is essentially a medium language' uniting, 'as no other language unites, the Romanic and the Teutonic stocks', concluding that such a language might become 'the most widely spoken language on earth'. (Gachelin 12)

Chenevix Trench also praised English as 'the one language of Europe which thus serves as connecting link between the North and the South, between the languages spoken by the Teutonic nations of the North and by the Romance nations of the South', acting as 'a middle term betwe[e]n them' (English Past and Present, pp. 36--37). (Gachelin 12; the insertion of [e] mine)

. . . Jakob Grimm celebrated in English 'a surprisingly intimate union of the two noblest languages in modern Europe, the Teutonic and the Romance', prophesying its role as a 'world-language' (Gachelin 12)

Since English is more than half Latin in its vocabulary, the whole American continent might be said to be predominantly Latin, whatever dictionary, diccionario, diciónario or dictionnaire you may consult. (Gachelin 12)

'English-speaking peoples are helped in learning the vocabulary of both Romance and Germanic languages by their own twin heritage' (Anthony Burgess, Language Made Plain, p. 145). (Gachelin 13)

. . . as Sir Francis Palgrave once put it, 'the warp may be Anglo-Saxon, but the woof is Roman as well as the embroidery. (Gachelin 14)

　Gachelin 自身は，ゲルマン世界とロマンス世界をつなぐ架け橋としての英語（語彙）の役割を肯定的にとらえ，英語が世界語としてふさわしいことを説いている．
　しかし，私見では，それはあくまで後付けの結果論である．英語は語彙がロマンス化してきたがゆえに世界語になりつつあるわけではない．世界語になりつつある今，歴史を振り返ってみたら，英語は語彙的にロマンス化していたとわかった，ということではないか．また，Gachelin が考えている架け橋は，あくまでゲルマンとロマンスの架け橋であって，世界の架け橋ではない．この辺りにヨーロッパ中心の発想が潜んでいるように思われる．

　・ Gachelin, Jean-Marc. "Is English a Romance Language?" English Today 23 (July 1990): 8--14.

[ 固定リンク | 印刷用ページ ]