James Knott wrote:
Randall R Schulz wrote:
Kevan,
On Saturday 19 November 2005 05:30, Kevanf1 wrote:
...
I sometimes wonder how many people actually realise that English, spoken all over the world, is actually derived from ancient Germanic languages.
English (as spoken all over the world) is the biggest mutt of a language ever (and I love it). It has roots or strong influences from languages of the British Isles, Northern Europe, French, Latin, Greek and even Arabic. The French influence from the Norman conquests gave English its horse-of-a-different-color vowel scheme.
Those Normans are, in fact, Norse who had been in France for many years. It really Gauls a lot of people to hear it called "French". ;-)
Next time you take an aeroplane from Paris Charles de Gualle, think on this. You're safer getting a taxi, train, bus, hire car, anything fixed to the ground to England, Belgium or Germany because whilst the international language of aviation is English, the preferred language at Paris CDG is french. They have more accidents than any other airport because of this. Now that's really Gauling J For info: it's quicker to travel from Paris to London by Eurostar and the check-in desk for Air France flights from Bruxelles to Paris is at Bruxelles Midi railway station!