French had several hundred years of established literary tradition when English was still 'descending'.

Not that it matters, given that we are talking about this in English, which has become the lingua franca in an amusing twist of fate, thanks to the East India Company.

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signal11 14 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Heh. English actually has an older written tradition than French.

Not that it’s a competition or anything. But it’s interesting to see people make assumptions about easily-looked-up stuff.

	▲	reverius42 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Old English is pretty unintelligible by modern English speakers though. Middle English much more so, but wasn't that already French-influenced?

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umanwizard 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Beowulf, the earliest major work of English literature, is from somewhere between the 8th and 11th centuries. French certainly did not have "several hundred years of established literary tradition" by that time, even if you pick the latter date.

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pcrh 14 hours ago | parent | next [-]

La Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland) is dated to between 1129 and 1165. It resembles modern French much more than Beowulf resembles modern English. Few English speakers today could read Beowulf.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_Roland

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanson_de_Roland

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signal11 14 hours ago | parent [-]

This is a great example of moving the goalposts re the original (false) point that a previous comment made about French having a longer literary history than English.

If you’ve got a specific agenda, say x > y, you can be very selective about success criteria to suit yourself.

In this particular case of English and French, the reality is that few modern French speakers can read the Song of Roland. “Resembles x much more” is pretty irrelevant because it cherry-picks similarities while glossing over differences. One can equally say Old English’s “and forgyf us ure gyltas” is pretty readable, but really you’re scraping the bottom of the argument barrel.

Also glossing over an older literary tradition because the language mutated in response to a new political reality (conquest) is ... curious.

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reverius42 13 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't think it's moving the goalposts to say that something understandable by modern French speakers has an older literary tradition than something understandable by modern English speakers. You can call what we speak today "English" but it barely resembles the language used in Beowulf.

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signal11 12 hours ago | parent [-]

You’re entitled to your opinion. All I’ll say is that in the context of the bald fact (French has an older literary tradition than English) presented by a previous commenter, “understandable by modern speakers” is moving the goalposts. In my opinion of course.

Also

> something understandable by modern French speakers

The Song of Roland, used as an example in a previous comment, doesn’t qualify, and actually is yet another reason why this line of argument is pretty sad.

	▲	merry_flame 8 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The term "Old English" is completely misleading in this context given how distant modern English is from that language. Both were spoken in England, that's about it. Applying the same logic to "France", should we then consider Gallo-Roman works like Ausonius's Mosella (c. 370 CE) to be "French" literature? The Beowulf manuscript dates from around 975 CE and is written in what might be better termed Anglo-Saxon. How much can you understand from this random sentence: "þa me þæt gelærdon leode mine, þa selestan, snotere ceorlas"? ("So my vassals advised me well…) I personally can't understand a single word or even relate it in any way to the English I know. On the other hand, the Sequence of Saint Eulalia was composed in "Old French" in 880 BCE and seems rather intelligible to me. I also just took a random sentence from the Chanson de Roland (c. 1100 BC) and can understand all of it: "Seignurs, vos en ireiz. Branches d’olive en voz mains portereiz, Si me direz a Carlemagne le rei Pur le soen Deu qu’il ait mercit de mei." I'd even go so far as to say that's closer to modern French than Shakespearean English despite being written in Anglo-Norman … Which also means it should probably count as being English literature if Beowulf qualifies… I guess the lesson here is simply to remember that reality is always a lot more granular than we first expect and that any sweeping judgements on languages, countries, etc. over the span of millennia make very little sense. By that criteria, the linked article was pure clickbait to begin with.
	▲	reverius42 12 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Fair enough!

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pqtyw 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Well if you count Old English you might as well count Latin for French too.