Why French sounds so unlike other Romance languages

Sound changes left French unlike Latin, Italian, Spanish or Romanian. How? Here's the recipe.

~ Briefly ~

Follow my animated recipe for a taste of how sound shifts changed French pronunciation throughout the ages: Latin, Gaulish and Frankish influence, an early Romance era of Oïl vs Oc, Old French, Middle French, the Renaissance, all the way to Modern and then Contemporary French.

Yes, it's a recipe! I originally wrote this as a more direct history. After much tinkering I wanted to recreate the story of the sounds of French as a pastry.

~ Credits ~

Art, narration, animation and some of the music by Josh from NativLang

Sources for claims made, and credits for most of the music, fonts, sfx:

Licensed Music:

Laid Back Guitars by Kevin MacLeod

Danse Macabre - Sad Part - no violin by Kevin MacLeod

Sardana by Kevin MacLeod

March of the Spoons by Kevin MacLeod

Village Consort by Kevin MacLeod

Suonatore di Liuto by Kevin MacLeod

Heavy Heart by Kevin MacLeod

Silver Flame by Kevin MacLeod

Thinking Music by Kevin MacLeod

Duet Musette by Kevin MacLeod

Sneaky Snooper by Jason Shaw

[NativLang]

A link to my sources document, also linked in the description:

After months of creating and recreating this anim, I'm still unsure what to think. I hope you enjoy. Thank you for watching!

[BakouMOH]

I always thought of French as the most germanicized romance language, while English would be the most romanized germanic language.

[manu_stampfer]

Let’s just appreciate how water in French is written with 3 vowels, but it doesn’t sound like any of those 3 vowels
EAU = O

[Tbug]

I've always wondered why Spanish and Italian sound so similar while there is simultaneously an entire france between them.

[ameliebabin]

I am a French person who studied old French and the origins of French and I must say I am FLABBERGASTED at your PERFECT accentuation and pronunciation of old French (like "lait, cerise, etc")

[EloLeChan]

I'm actually impressed at how this man is able to pronounce so many different phonetics that sound so similar, and tell the difference

[XxdocorexX]

Every body is talking about how french is weird and stuff, but really we need to speak more about the quality and complexity of this video ! There is so much work on this to the point it's completely fluid with the topic ! Nice video, deserve more congrats :)

[andreameert]

Although French is often considered a nightmare for foreign speakers, I think it must be a real pleasure for linguists who can clearly see all the evolutions and the remains of old versions of the language.

[Arutima]

Quebecer here. Yes, we do have a lot of old archaic French words from late Middle French and Renaissance French. The reason why our French did not continue evolving much is because of the British conquest of 1759.

[gingerbreadgirrl]

You just answered almost all of the questions I had about why french the way is that it is.

[magocaramelo]

Spanish: Everything is pronounce as written
German: Everything is pronounce as written, but with some extra rules
French: Everything is pronounce as written, but with one thousand of rules and exceptions

[jandor]

French is called the language of love because just like love relationships it strived to make itself nice and comfortable but ended up to be too complicated

[Hello-hnkq]

Man it is incredible how languages evolve over time. It seems like an impossible task and yet it just happens

[yannickdrmda]

French : Here is the rule.
World : Ok ...
French : *And here are the exceptions to the rule (1/6558809)*

[silkyjohnsn]

I'm convinced french people will just be communicating with short exasperated whistles by the end of this century.

[frankmalenfant]

Thanks for incorporating other french countries' promunciations also. Born and raised in Québec, I've grown in a culture with the false belief that our "joual" was a "bastardization" of France's french. Then I found out that we actually often use more ancient promunciations and vocabulary. All languages are equaly good and there is no such thing as talking without an accent. I love the diversity of language, I love the mamy regional accents of Québec, l'Acadie, and everywhere else (although I think the french spoken on Les Îles de la Madeleine's Havre au maisons may be my favorite way to have french sound.

[labechamel]

For those who don’t know, linguistic researchers claims that 41% (25, 000 words) of the english words come from the old Norman-French language.
During the medieval age, since the invasion of England by Guillaume Le Conquérant (William The Conqueror) in 1066, the Norman-French was imposed at the court of England and all its institutions. Then for 300 years, England was ruled by the French house of Plantagenet coming from Anjou in France. Therefore, French became the official language of England. However because of the tough rivalry between France and England, the latter has always refused to admit this heritage especially after loosing the One Hundred Years war. If you still have doubt just read what is written on the symbol of the England monarchy « Dieu et mon Droit » which is in French.
It is obvious that there are many English words that come from French because they don’t exist in any other languages and adopt the same spelling. Example: « table » in french is « table », « village » in french is « village », « lion » in french is « lion », “centre” in french is “centre” “immense” comes from the french word “immense”, “monumental” from the french word “monumental”, “budget” from “budget” in french. Then you have some words originated from French which were a bit transformed in English because they are difficult to pronounce. Usually English just reversed the last 2 letters, removed the accents or replaced a letter « mute » comes from « muet » in french, theatre » from « théâtre » in French, “people” comes from the french word “peuple”… to that you maybe know “carte blanche”, “rendez-vous”, “cliché”…
It’s not surprising as France and England are neighbors and have a common history.

[williamdailey]

Louisiana French speaker here, love how much light this shines on North American French dialects

[Tezorus]

I'm so glad I was born french. Otherwise I would never have the patience to learn that crazy shit.

[andybaughman]

As a French speaker who's learning Spanish, this is super interesting. I'm so happy I don't remember learning French because I would have given up.