On 11/19/2005 09:38 AM, 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. Actually, if you take a close look at all the weird spellings, the vast majority are in words of Germanic origin; this is a result of the Danish invasion (9th century), not the Norman.