what makes English Germanic?
Greg,
Why do you only write in English anonymously? You seem to have this high and mighty principle about not stooping down to the level of the evil Anglos, so you insist on writing in French. But, so as to not compromise this principle, and reveal your hypocrisy before all, when you wish to get your point across, or insult me, you post in English, under a false identity, the famously annoying, and cowardly "Guest".
And what, may I ask, is the basis of your accusation, LAA?
--And what, may I ask, is the basis of your accusation, LAA?--
He apparently assumes that there can only be "one" Guest.
Ceci est faux, bien sûr !
---------------------------------------------------------------
Some estimates of the number of words in English -
500,000 words
1,000,000 words
(including scientific words
Quote:
"The statistics of English are astonishing. Of all the world's languages (which now number some 2,700), it is arguably the richest in vocabulary. The compendious Oxford English Dictionary lists about 500,000 words; and a further half-million technical and scientific terms remain uncatalogued. According to traditional estimates, neighboring German has a vocabulary of about 185,000 and French fewer than 100,000, including such Franglais as le snacque-barre and le hit-parade."
Robert McCrum, William Cran, & Robert MacNeil. The Story of English. New York: Penguin, 1992: 1
*****************************************************
English - 500,000 (plus another 500,000 technical terms)
German - 185,000
French - a paltry 100,000
Have you ever encountered a person who just keeps on rambling on and on with no end in sight. If you have, you might have wondered if he/she would ever run out of words to say. Unfortunately, that will remain a dream for all of us.
As we enter the Twenty First Century, English is the most widely spoken and written language on Earth. English was first spoken in Britain by Germanic tribes in Fifth Century AD also known as the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) period. During the Middle English period (1150-1500 AD), a lot of the Old English word endings were replaced by prepositions like by, with, and from. We are now in the Modern English period which started in the Sixteenth Century.
The number of words in English has grown from 50,000 to 60,000 words in Old English to about a million today. There are a number of ways in which the English vocabulary increases. The principal way in which it grows is by borrowing words from other languages. About 80% of the entries in any English dictionary are borrowed, mainly from Latin. Another way is by combining words into one word such as housewife, greenhouse, and overdue. The addition of prefixes and suffixes to words also increases the immense vocabulary of the English language.
Today, more than 750 million people use the English language. An average educated person knows about 20,000 words and uses about 2,000 words in a week. Despite its widespread use, there are only about 350 million people who use it as their mother tongue. It is the official language of the Olympics. More than half of the world's technical and scientific periodicals as well three quarters of the world's mail, and its telexes and cables are in English. About 80% of the information stored in the world's computers (such as this text) are also in English. English is also transmitted to more than 100 million people everyday by 5 of the largest broadcasting companies (CBS, NBC, ABC, BBC, CBC).
It seems like English will remain the most widely used language for some time.
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/JohnnyLing.shtml
LAA : « Why do you only write in English anonymously? »
Tu deviens paranoïaque !
LAA : « But, so as to not compromise this principle, and reveal your hypocrisy before all, when you wish to get your point across, or insult me, you post in English, under a false identity, the famously annoying, and cowardly "Guest". »
Ainsi, après avoir étalé ton narcissime et ton inculture, tu viens lancer des accusations et donner des leçons de morale ? Pour qui te prends-tu ?
Pourquoi penses-tu que je m'amuserais à me dissimuler sous couvert d'anonymat pour dire en anglais ce que je te dis publiquement en français ?
Ta crise de parano illustre assez bien ta démarche en général : tu pérores sans savoir de quoi tu parles —> tu ne fais pas illusion.
Et si c'est une manœuvre de diversion, sache qu'elle te ressemble assez : pitoyable & inefficace.
Adam : j'attends toujours ta "démonstration". Creuse davantage !
[To the original poster:]
I've noticed that the most basic words are the most similar in German and English, e.g.:
Haus --> house
Finger --> finger
Hand --> hand
Arm --> arm
Apfel --> apple
Wasser --> water
Stein --> stone
Schuh --> shoe
Garten --> garden
And the original poster thinks she cannot see a relationship between these two Germanic languages?
It's true that the more complicated words came from French (and thus Latin) during the Norman conquest because of the legal terms, etc.
no doubt: english is a germanic language
if you learn another germanic language you will realise it immediately
"And the original poster thinks she cannot see a relationship between these two Germanic languages? "
----------------------------------
German isn't as close to English as Dutch or Frisian, but it's still quite close.
But even Frisian, the closest language to English, isn't very similar to English.
English is almost like a language like Finnish - there are almost no languages, even closely-related ones, that are very much like it, whereas languages such as French and Spanish or German and Dutch are very similar to each other.
More info or detailed background on the origin of English are to found at the English and Northern culture chapter at
www.nordfolk.net
(no doubt: english is a germanic language
if you learn another germanic language you will realise it immediately)
If you learn a romance language you will doubt this and if you learn a germanic and a romance language, english starts to make sense. A midway language but correctly classified as a germanic language.
<<A midway language but correctly classified as a germanic language>>
I disagree.
English is a germanic language with a high percentage of borrowed words, mostly latin based.
English is the only union between a germanic and a Latin language. It's so simple.
is such a union necessary?
is there a union between celtic and slavic?
"English is the only union between a germanic and a Latin language. It's so simple. "
Absloutly not a union of germanic and latin !
English is cleraly a germanic language... but that would have prefered to be a romance one, and who put over itself the romance dresses... A latin wanabee germanic language.