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How Germanic is English? | ||
Tags: Germanic Languages | English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| limey75 Senior Member United Kingdom germanic.eu/ Joined 4187 days ago 119 posts - 182 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Norwegian, Old English | Message 41 of 54 10 November 2012 at 5:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, I have it, it's very interesting! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| limey75 Senior Member United Kingdom germanic.eu/ Joined 4187 days ago 119 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Norwegian, Old English | Message 42 of 54 10 November 2012 at 5:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
You mean: How We'd Talk If The English Had Won in 1066. Cowley, D. Bright Pen Pub., 2009. ISBN-13: 978-0755211678. Yes, it's an excellent book, I have it. Send me a private message about this. You might find the following titles interesting as well: The Rebirth of England and English: The Vision of William Barnes. Phillips, A. Hockwold-cum-Wilton: Anglo-Saxon Books, 1996. ISBN: 1-898281-17-3. Going Native: The Regeneration of Saxon English. (Publication of the American Dialect Society 69). Baron, D.E. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1981. [No ISBN]. Our Englishness. Linsell, T. (ed.). Hockwold-cum-Wilton: Anglo-Saxon Books, 2000. ISBN: 1-898281-24-6. Pure Saxon English, or, Americans to the front. Molee, Elias. Nabu Press (March 25, 2012). ISBN-13: 978-1278789880. Germanik English: A scheme for uniting the English and German languages on a Saxon and English bases [!] in such a way as to obtain a language. Molee, Elias. University of Michigan Library (September 29, 2009). See also here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_purism_in_English Edited by limey75 on 19 November 2012 at 6:07am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4616 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 43 of 54 17 November 2012 at 3:57am | IP Logged | |||||
I would tend to agree. According to some sources, Scots (and Scottish English) was heavily influenced by Scandinavian, but when, some time back, I asked Iversen if he had noticed many similarities with Danish in his study of Scots, he didn't seem to have noticed many. (Apologies if I misrepresent you, Iversen). Everyone knows "kirk" and "bairn", and there are at least a few score more, but why not hundreds or thousands more, if it was so strongly influenced? Well perhaps the influence/dominance of English, plus the remaining similarities between English and Danish perhaps tends to mask the specific Scottish/Scandinavian connections. There is also the Celtic/Gaelic connection. Which brings us back to the question raised by someone further back: what of the Celtic influence on English? Well, there is apparently none, or next to none. Which seems a little sad in a way. However, as has been referred to a few times, it seems that more "Celts" might have survived the various invasions of England over the centuries than previously imagined, and perhaps they weren't all driven westward, south-westward or northward, to exist on a diet consisting solely of leeks, Cornish pasties, or haggis, but are still happily devouring la haute cuisine of fish and chips like the rest of us.
Yes. I believe linguists have some explanations, but I could not give them to you off the top of my head. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zerrubabbel Senior Member United States Joined 4388 days ago 232 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 44 of 54 17 November 2012 at 1:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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going back to the original question, as one who knows no other Germanic or romance language, when I try to read
either, I have to say I find the Germanic languages more intelligible than romance... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| boon Diglot Groupie Ireland Joined 5947 days ago 91 posts - 177 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Mandarin, Latin | Message 45 of 54 18 November 2012 at 12:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
Very simple sentences are often more intelligible in Germanic than Romance. Die Kuh ist braun (German) The cow is brown However, more complex sentences are usually more intelligible in Romance because of the shared vocabulary. Think of all those words ending in -tion, -ity, -ible etc. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| lebeundlerne Triglot Newbie United States Joined 4178 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Norwegian, Mandarin, French | Message 46 of 54 18 November 2012 at 3:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Just for kicks, I thought I'd throw music into the mix here, since song lyrics are often very informal and similar to
what people use in everyday speech. Take the Beatles' "Let it Be": (I put asterisks around the words of French/Latin origin.) "When I find myself in times of *trouble*, mother Mary comes to me, Speaking words of wisdom, let it be. And in my *hour* of darkness she is standing right in front of me..." That's just one example, of course, but if you look at most English popular music, I think it's pretty good evidence for English still being a largely Germanic language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| limey75 Senior Member United Kingdom germanic.eu/ Joined 4187 days ago 119 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Norwegian, Old English | Message 47 of 54 28 November 2012 at 1:15am | IP Logged | |||||
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It's been a long time since I read any of the King James Bible or studied the language of the book of common prayer, but both of those could be taken to be solid indicators of the nature of the everyday language. And they are, if my memory serves me correctly, firmly Anglo-Saxon.
Check out the Lord's Prayer. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen. Only the following words are non-Saxon: trespasses/trespass, temptation, deliver, power, glory, amen. That's 6 words which are foreign out of 71 words in total...triumphantly SAXON I would say! Edited by limey75 on 28 November 2012 at 2:18am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Surtalnar Tetraglot Groupie Germany Joined 4184 days ago 52 posts - 67 votes Speaks: German*, Latin, English, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), Arabic (classical) | Message 48 of 54 28 November 2012 at 3:11am | IP Logged | |||||
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English is much more Germanic than many of you think. French is a very Germanic language in its lexicon, intonation, sounding and even partly in its phonetics and grammar, but the lexica statistics for English count French and Latin words of Germanic origin as Romance words, even if they are clearly Germanic.
So e.g. the English word "stuff" is counted as a Romance word in those statistics, because it came through French to English, but its unmistakably a Germanic word of Frankish origin (Frankish stopfon/stoppon, compare it with the German word "Stoff") Even "ticket", "camouflage", "develop", "embassy", "fiasco", "plaque", "ballon", "abandon", "bondage", "sallon" and "lobby" are words of Germanic origin, but where counted as Romance words. So you can bring those statistics, which says that 70% of the English words are of Romance origins, without danger to rubbish. (rubbish is also of Germanic origin) Also keep in mind that Latin borrowed also many words from the Germanic languages and Anglo-Norman is even a more Germanic language than Standard French is/was. Try to express your emotions in English without using Germanic adjectives, adverbs and verbs -- I'm sure you will fail. English is not more Romanic, than French Germanic is. (French uses for all cardinal directions, many colors and many words regarding war and rural life a substantial Germanic vocabulary) 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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