>>A lady friend sent me a picture of a sign in a shop window in London that
>>said; "We Speak American." I've always found it interesting that the English
>>language originated in Germany. /jnm
>>
>
>I don' sink so m'sieu.
>
>It is *Anglo-Saxon* by name, certainly, but its origins are many.
>More, I would say, originates from Old English and Latin.
>
>There are, of course, many similarities with Germanic languages, but
>look at the OE and Latin derivatives that are common with French,
>Spanish and Italian. The Greek derivations are many as well.
>C M I Barker
All right, hold on tight. Old English IS Anglo Saxon - usually Wessex
dialect because that was the dominant form. It is very similar to Middle
High German I believe and incomprehensible to us now. I had to learn some
at Uni., many moons ago. Northumbrian dialect was swamped by Old Norse when
the Vikings invaded and set up the Danelaw. No sooner had that been
assimilated than the Normans showed up, speaking a form of French but also
overlaid with Norse because they were French settled Vikings. That was
assimilated and the resulting blend was Middle English, (see Chaucer) which
is still pretty tough to understand. There was considerable Latin input
from the monasteries at this stage too. Then cometh the Great Vowel
Shift.....
Of course, half the words we now use were simply invented by Shakespeare.
Hey, language is dynamic. Americans still use some archaisms like 'gotten'
as well as that nasty habit of turning every second verb into a noun
(ergh!) Quebecois sound really odd to the French who fight a valiant
rearguard action to preserve theirs.
It's all fine, so long as we don't expect to understand each other but
still keep trying.
AndrewF
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|