French Culture Essay

French Culture and Its Impact on English and French Culture and Language

Since the beginning of human interaction, culture was a driving force with respect to language. Culture completely shapes the how and what people say to each other. Additionally, culture’s influence on language has been so powerful, that the more dominant a culture becomes the more the language of that culture will permeate other cultures that it has interaction with and subsequently comes to dominate the language of neighboring cultures. Some may even argue that language is a sub-culture of culture itself and yet others argue that language is simply a product or manifestation of a particular culture. Irrespective of the position that one may assume in this age old debate the overriding theme is culture significantly impacts language and in-turn, culture drives consequences of social institutions. I will address language as a social institution and its consequences in a separate paper.
Miriam-Webster defines culture as: the beliefs, customs, arts, etc, of a particular society, group, place or time; a particular society that has its own beliefs, ways of life art, etc. Miriam-Webster defines language as: a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings.
“Languages, like cultures, are rarely sufficient unto themselves. The necessities of intercourse bring the speakers of one language into direct or indirect contact with those of neighboring or culturally dominant languages. The intercourse may be friendly or hostile. It may move on the humdrum plane of business and trade relations or it may consist of a borrowing or interchange of spiritual goods—art, scienc...

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...stimated that English speakers who have never studied French already know 15,000 French words.
Both English and Norman commoners learned some each-others language. As a result, the English nobility was not really an Anglo-French aristocracy. William himself made an effort at the age of forty-three to learn some English to settle disputes between his subjects. William considered banishing English so that the English and the French might speak the same language.
Conclusion
In conclusion, cultures do easily influence each other. Language provides not only a means, but through interaction and societal hierarchical structure it often demonstrates which culture is the most dominant and has the most influence. One could argue that culture is the most dominant human force on the planet and culture certainly exudes a mighty impact through the human interaction of language.