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Is English a weak, simple language?

Farikos-ისა და 9 იანვარი, 2009-ის მიერ

შეტყობინებები: 43

ენა: English

andogigi (მომხმარებლის პროფილი) 12 იანვარი, 2009 01:41:22

vejktoro:
The day Old English died.
I once read that French remained the language of the English court until the 1400's. Apparently, the first letter from an English monarch written in modern English was from Henry V. He was writing home to tell everyone he had won the battle of Agincourt. I guess, by that time, he had had enough of French. We few, we happy few... lango.gif

vejktoro (მომხმარებლის პროფილი) 12 იანვარი, 2009 03:03:25

erinja:I have always felt a bit cross about 1066, actually.

We lost many of our Germanic roots, but we are not Romance either. We are in a weird no-man's land on the family tree of languages. We are close family to no-one, and the weird distant cousin that no one really likes very much to everyone.

It's not the fault of today's French people, but I wish you guys could go back in time and tell the Normans not to invade ridulo.gif
Oh well, guess we did better than the Normans... they completely lost their Germanic tongue to the Latins.

But they did get a new family I guess.

orthohawk (მომხმარებლის პროფილი) 12 იანვარი, 2009 17:07:11

vejktoro:
Battle of Hastings.

The day Old English died.
Historical linguists are now saying that OE was already well on its way out by Hastings. Had the French never invaded, about the only thing different about the language would be the absence of all the latinate vocabulary

Ironchef (მომხმარებლის პროფილი) 12 იანვარი, 2009 18:19:05

Remember that The Normans were not "French" in the ethnic, Romance sense; they were transplanted Norse (ie Vikings) who settled in Normandy and were assimilated by the Gaulish tribes who became known as the French. There are still non-French languages spoken in France (Breton, Basque to name but two). The concept of "French" being one people is as tenuous as the Germans, British or Italians being "one people". Nation states and the adjectives we use today are very misleading when it comes to ethnicity and language.

You say you wish the Normans had not invaded because you would have liked to hold onto the Anglo-Saxon pedigree of Old English, but pre 8th century "Englishmen" were speaking celtic/cymric languages more akin to Welsh and Cornish than German. Had the Angles and Saxons not come to Britain we might have ended up with a language more like Welsh/Danish. Think about that for a moment ridulo.gif

vejktoro (მომხმარებლის პროფილი) 12 იანვარი, 2009 20:18:02

Ironchef: but pre 8th century "Englishmen" were speaking celtic/cymric languages more akin to Welsh and Cornish than German. Had the Angles and Saxons not come to Britain we might have ended up with a language more like Welsh/Danish. Think about that for a moment ridulo.gif
Er...
Yes, there were Celts on the Islands before the Germanic tribes, but the term English comes from the word Angles and referred to their language and culture.
We know that the Celtic groups remained linguistically separate from the Angles and Saxons by the fact that there are almost no Celtic loan words into English from that period.
It was the descendants of the English that eventually fared so well at colonialism, and spread their tongue.
I think it`s kinda hard to guess what the Celts would have done had the Germanic crowd stayed home... or what havoc the Angles and Saxons would have caused on the continent, linguistically or otherwise.
Historical linguists are now saying that OE was already well on its way out by Hastings. Had the French never invaded, about the only thing different about the language would be the absence of all the latinate vocabulary
Maybe, but the development would have been much more along native paths.

Ironchef (მომხმარებლის პროფილი) 12 იანვარი, 2009 20:40:09

vejktoro:We know that the Celtic groups remained linguistically separate from the Angles and Saxons by the fact that there are almost no Celtic loan words into English from that period.
The Celts had all but scarpered off to Wales and Cornwall to avoid the Romans way before then. I lived in a Roman-founded town which later became Anglo Saxon. There's little to no evidence of Celtic settlement there. Penguin is a good Celtic word in English, it comes from Cornish "penn gwyn" (white head) but that came later, once Cornish seafarers had reached the south seas in the 1700s. But I'm off the point now.

orthohawk (მომხმარებლის პროფილი) 13 იანვარი, 2009 00:29:44

erinja (მომხმარებლის პროფილი) 13 იანვარი, 2009 00:33:41

I would be very interested to know what the natural path of English would have been, without the Norman invasion. Of course Old English would not have remained as it was. But perhaps it would bear some resemblance to a modern Frisian language, since Old Frisian is the closest relative to Old English. Or perhaps like a cross between Frisian and Norwegian, since Old English was also heavily influenced by Old Norse.

As far as the Angles go, of course the whole of the British Isles would have been Celtic only, if not for invasion/immigration by Norsemen and Germanic tribes. But I am actually of both English and Welsh descent, so I would have been alright with that as well, if Britain had remained Celtic.

I suppose the Celts were the really big losers, all told; much of France would have been Celtic, if not for the invasions of the Romans. Not to speak of the other language families that have died out entirely, or exist only in tiny pockets, like the Basques.

Farikos (მომხმარებლის პროფილი) 13 იანვარი, 2009 03:32:41

I actually like many of the Latin root words in our language. I'm just glad they don't comprise the entire language.

You know what'd be really interesting and extremely unlikely? If Latin had survived as a single spoken language instead of evolving into the Romance languages? Well, it'd be an extremely different variety of Latin, but it'd still be Latin.

God, can you imagine Latin slang? I'd probably have to burst into tears with laughter if I heard Latin cuss words because I find Latin to sound so regal even when I say something something simple like "The poet does not kiss the girl."

Poeta puellam non basiat.

>.>

*loves his Latin*

wuxia_penguin (მომხმარებლის პროფილი) 13 იანვარი, 2009 04:09:30

Geography should not be ignored when it comes to changing languages. English starts out being largely Germanic/Celtic/Norse, because geographically speaking those are the closest countries to England. A few centuries down the road, the Renaissance comes, transportation is improved and various Latin langauges make their mark. A little later down the road, even better transportation leads to colonialism which leads to Asian, African, and other Native tongues making their way in. Seamus Heaney was the one who wrote about his, but I can't remember where.

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