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Rob Brennan UK -> RE: 1.8 works GREAT!!! (until now [;)] ) (4/20/2006 2:06:56 AM)
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ORIGINAL: pauk
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ORIGINAL: niceguy2005
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ORIGINAL: Terminus
Yankee Cultural Imperialism at work...
Yes it is...as it should be [;)]
To answer Pauk's question, this is the way English was created in the first place. The more powerful force got to shape the language. Otherwise there wouldn't be English it would be Celtic - now there's a tough language to learn.
Yep, that is why i love history so much! In English case, Germans tribe was more powerful force to Celts (go Ireland, go![:)]) and forced Celtic tribes to retreat on west (Wales,) and south (Brittany - French peninsula). They spreaded their language over the Britain (and first known name for Britain was Albion - word have Celtic roots and means white). Although Romans ruled Britain (until 407. right?) they didn't succed with romanisation and only "language" trace of their presence/rule in modern GB are some name of the cities (Chester - it comes from latin castrum) and names of the months (august - August, March - Romans war good, June, September - latin septem - means 7. month in the year (Romans year starts with March....)... On the other hand, name of days remains named after Scandinavian (German goods)
Then village comes from the french and anglo-saxon word coombe is forgotten (i think only Wycoombe have this anglo-saxoon root) and slave comes from slavic languages (slave is derivated from Slavic - lots of Slavic peoples were inprisoned and used as - slaves)...
but then again, we have examples from history where more powerful force was "defeated" from the defeated peoples. Bulgars (originally were non-indoeuropan people and had their own language) adopted Slavic language after they defeated local Slavs and become their masters and their only trace is visible in the name of the nation - Bulgars....
sort of Pauk .. yes a lot of village and town names are based on ancient danish/norwegian .and some cities still keep their latin names .. shows who was more influentiontial imo. and yes English is a mish mash of other toungues .. latin/germanic ( pre german tongues) /scandanavian too. The reason why a lot of english and French have the same root is latin (same goes for modern italian and spanish ).. basic common demonitator for both cultures , but both influenced by later invasions/ culture .. as an exapmle 1066 french took over england , although normandy was more norse than french and remained free from the french crown for another 100 years. so you could say that england was a splinter french colony in the early middle ages. Up until the end of the 100 years war england was nominally in charge of 1/2 of france .. but thata a simplistic view as it was a very less nationistic world back then .. i.e robin hood fighting for england is a daft concept .. and richard I only even visited london once (briefly ) he hated the place .. and never went near nottigham.
As for the differance between american english and modern english .. there are arguments on both sides that we/they have the older dialect .. and frankly who cares .. the maxim " divided by a common language " as pasternaski said is very true .. in the early middle ages im sure the same would be true of the english and french aristorcracy.. it wasnt untill the early 1900's that english became the dominant language .. ie the phrase " lingua franca" meaning common language .. french was the language of ambasadors the world over .. english finally took over during the early 1900's. the French have a hell of a legasy in modern european structure and language, but britain took over the world view and became dominant ..
well thats my 2p to add to the discussion ..
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