OMG!!How about this, WHAT IF South America was not predominantly colonized by Portugal and Spain? There can we stop dissecting the heritage of everyone who speaks a Latin language.
It doesn't really matter who the French are genetically descended from, and that's not the Franks in any case save for a small infusion. What matters is that French culture is largely descended from the Roman heritage and that French is a Romance language. By these standards the French are a Latin people. France definitely has a closer cultural kinship to, say, Italy, than to Germany.The beginning Post says Spain or Portugal. The French are technically not Latin, but Germanic, as they are the descendants of the Franks.
As pointed out by archaeogeek, the name "de Gaulle" has an entirely different etymology, and a single name is completely anecdotal.The French see themselve as Gallic not Germanic or Latin. Charles De Gaulle....Asterix the Gaul, Vercingetorix.
The French see themselve as Gallic not Germanic or Latin. Charles De Gaulle....Asterix the Gaul, Vercingetorix.
No Frenchmen would see their country as German. They might say Latin to identify themselves with Catholic countries or with Romanians but it would not be their feeling.
The French may have talked about the Latin world but most people would make a distinction between Latin America (Spanish/Portuguese) and French America (Canada), just as people would distinguish German culture from British culture even if some people tried to see them both as Teutonic.
Oh, what nonsense. France is culturally and lingually Romance. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Celts, unless you go the silly racialist "by blood" route, which means nothing. France has absolutely no continuity with Gaul, just as Germany has absolutely no continuity with the Germanic tribes.The French are Celts (whatever mixture they were prior to 60BC) with an admixture of Latin colonists from the Roman Empire and Germanic invaders in the 4th and 5th century.
I wouldnt really call it fascinating, because its just entirely silly to deny that.Hendryk said:Fascinating side debate about whether the French qualify as a Latin people
It's the misconceptions themselves that I find fascinating, TBH.I wouldnt really call it fascinating, because its just entirely silly to deny that.
It's the misconceptions themselves that I find fascinating, TBH.
The thing is large parts of south america were more of a "wtf did you just take over the whole empire with 50 men" - it's not too hard to fail in mesoamerica and slightly less hard in Peru.
Argh, mind your terminology! "Teutonic" is a nonsense word meaning absolutely nothing at all (except when its used in hostile propaganda refering to Germany).Oh, what nonsense. France is culturally and lingually Romance. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Celts, unless you go the silly racialist "by blood" route, which means nothing. France has absolutely no continuity with Gaul, just as Germany has absolutely no continuity with the Germanic tribes.
I wouldnt really call it fascinating, because its just entirely silly to deny that.
It does amaze me as well, and makes me sad and laugh at the same time. Like you said, "50 Spaniards just took over an empire", the Indigenous powers were smashed in less then a decades time; while on the other hand more 'tribal' groups managed to resist far longer.
Please don't patronize with your 'silly racialist by blood route' and then say something as ridiculous as France has nothing to do with Gaul or Germans has nothing to do with the Germanic tribes. All countries developed from their past. You may as well say the Egyptians of today have nothing to do with Ancient Egypt and that the Pyramids are not their monument because they now speak Arabic and are mostly Muslim or the Turkish people have nothing to do with anything in their country prior to the 14th century.
It's disheartening with both, but when they landed, the Inca empire was in the middle of a civil war and having its equivalent to the black death thanks to the viral shock, while Cortez was amazingly good at playing mesoamerican and spanish colonial politics for his own gain, and he quickly went from "50 spaniards" to "200 spaniards and 10.000 tarascans".
The Egyptians of today DO have nothing to do with Ancient Egypt. Hellenisation, Christianisation, Islamification, Arabification... its a different culture now, plain and simple. One can make the same argument for the Greeks, who after all were insulted for centuries if you called them such (and not Romans), so theres no continuity in identity. So, yes even the oh so hallowed cultures of ancient times are not immune to that.
Sure, nothing arises out of a vacuum. But there is a difference between continuity and, well, replacement. Culturally, Gaul was entirely replaced, as was the world of the Germanic tribes. And culture and identity are the only things mattering in this regard.
Europeans were sailing to the New World before Columbus. Fisherman were already operating off the Grand Banks near Canada. Sailors almost certainly landed there before 1492.
To keep Europeans out of America you would have to bring ship building development to a halt and create a force field across the mid Atlantic to stop fisherman, whalers and adventurers from reaching landfall in America.
I find the "the french are celts" bit rather amusing given the attitude towards the breton language in french nationalist circles of the early 20th century; "language of the stone age"![]()
It's disheartening with both, but when they landed, the Inca empire was in the middle of a civil war and having its equivalent to the black death thanks to the viral shock, while Cortez was amazingly good at playing mesoamerican and spanish colonial politics for his own gain, and he quickly went from "50 spaniards" to "200 spaniards and 10.000 tarascans".
The Egyptians of today DO have nothing to do with Ancient Egypt. Hellenisation, Christianisation, Islamification, Arabification... its a different culture now, plain and simple. One can make the same argument for the Greeks, who after all were insulted for centuries if you called them such (and not Romans), so theres no continuity in identity. So, yes even the oh so hallowed cultures of ancient times are not immune to that.
Sure, nothing arises out of a vacuum. But there is a difference between continuity and, well, replacement. Culturally, Gaul was entirely replaced, as was the world of the Germanic tribes. And culture and identity are the only things mattering in this regard.
BS. The French nowadays are the descendants of a myriad of cultures; the Franks were merely a small elite ruling the Gallo-Roman population.
The French were always mostly Romanic, really........perhaps Turkish Capybara has a soft spot for the ancient Teutonic tribes, and there's nothing too wrong with that.
But if anything at all, it does seem to be the Franks were probably more Celtic than anything{hey, it does kinda make sense when you think about it........they were from the same general area that the Gauls came from.}, at least at first{but given how common mingling of different people was, especially in those days.........well, it's probably nothing more than a moot point nowadays.}
to solve the SPANISH/PORTUGUESE issue brought up, how about the Spanish War of Succession leads to a full on French victory, maybe the Ottomans attack the Habsburgs at a very inopportune moment and the british and portuguese get beat, some of the colonies that were spanish become french.
or, an independent italian state pops up in argentina (which has a large italian population, and oddly brings new meaning to 'latin' america).
same is possible for a german state, just a breakaway germanophone nation.
brits can see the future and look at any alternate history map of argentina, and realize that they should colonize therebut seriously, maybe if morgan opens pandoras box, and the english make a concerted effort, they can capture parts of colombia
By the way, France is "Latin" as much as Spain and Portugal are. By the standard that the French as Germanic because of the Franks, so would be the Spaniards because of the Visigoths, unless you credit them to be "Moors". And the Reconquista saw a great participation of Basques, who were not Latin-speaking at first.![]()
(and I am Longobardian, i guess).
Oh, there is an internation organization called Unilat, meaning Union Latine, Unión Latina, Unione Latina etc. Its headquarters happen to be in... Paris.
Its members include the Philippines and Angola (but not Argentina, oddly enough, she is an observer).