Why did English loan nearly all it's naval terms from Dutch?

<<Freebooter, vrijbuiter.
hoist, hijsen.
keel, kiel.
keelhaul, kielhalen.
knapsack, knapzak.
maelstrom, maalstroom.
deck, dek
deep, diep
dock, dok
yacht, jacht
skipper, schipper
freight, vracht
furlough, verlof
mast, mast >>

One should not confuse similarities in languages (especially languages as closely related as Dutch and English) with lexical borrowing. A couple of those words are descended from Old English (such as "deep" and "mast") and look like their Dutch counterparts because the languages are related.

Of those words you listed, etymonline.com lists "hoist" "dock" "skipper" "freight" "furlough" as coming from Dutch but the others are a mix of Old English, German, and Old Norse in origin. Etymonline specifically says this about "keel":

"Etymologists say this is unconnected with the root of M.Du. kiel "ship,""

=>"Maelstrom" doesn't come from Dutch. It comes from the Danish word "malstrøm" meaning "grinding-stream". Like the English, the Dutch word "maalstroom" also comes from the Danish, and the English word looks more like the original Danish than the Dutch word does. <=

No, not really Adam.

1682 (Hakluyt has Malestrand, c.1560), "whirlpool off the northwest coast of Norway," from Dan. malstrøm (1673), FROM DU. MAELSTROM, lit. "grinding-stream," from malen "to grind" (see meal) + stroom "stream." Name given by Du. cartographers (e.g. Mercator, 1595). Perhaps originally from Færoic mal(u)streymur. Popularized as a synonym for "whirlpool" c.1841.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=maelstrom&searchmode=none

Don't you guys know that a lot of maritime terms in Northern Europe come from Frisian? The Frisian were sailing all over the North Sea and the Baltic in the 7th, 8th and 9th centuries, at a time when everybody else were land crabs.

Surely many of these are very old words that existed at the time when English and Dutch diverged from each other and therefore share a common ancestry and cannot be said to come from one language or other?

Adam : « They [LES ROMAINS] even had difficulty crossing the English Channel ».

Les Français ont eu moins de difficultés en 1066 et en 1216 — par exemple...

Quelques vocables navals d'origine franco-latine : naval, navy, marine, ocean, galley, mayday, navigate, navigation, navigable, ensign, vessel, littoral, coast, embark, barge, pirate, chart, buccaneer, nautical, latitude, longitude, anchor.

<<Les Français ont eu moins de difficultés en 1066 et en 1216 — par exemple...>>

You really can't count 1216 as a French invasion of England. Many of the English nobles were so fed up with the rule of King John that they offered the English throne to Louis, son of King Philippe-Auguste of France. However, King John fortuitously died in October 1216 and his 9-year-old son was crowned as Henry III. Louis was defeated at the battle of Lincoln in 1217 and left England soon after.

There was also Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer's rebellion against Isabella's husband Edward II in 1326, launched from Dordrecht, but this doesn't really count as an 'invasion' either, as Isabella claimed the English throne for her (and Edward II's) son Edward III. The last time England was successfully invaded by a foreign power was in 1066.

Fortunately for Greg, as proud as he is of is romance-ness, the English-Speakers were able to cross "le manche" on June 6th, 1944.

And I'm not even British.

Candy : au risque de te contredire, je persiste à penser que l'accession de Louis le Lion, fils du roi de France, au trône d'Angleterre ne s'est pas simplement résumée à une aimable cérémonie protocolaire. D'autant que la noblesse française d'Angleterre avait bien préparé son coup contre Jean Sans-Terre — non seulement en Angleterre bien sûr, mais aussi (et surtout) depuis la France, où la Grande charte imposée au Platagenêt a été rédigée.

Louis Cœur-de-Lion et son père, Philippe Auguste, n'étaient pas réputés pour être les meilleurs amis des Plantagenêts, ainsi qu'en témoignent les cuisantes défaites essuyées par ceux-ci 1214 sur le continent et la fuite de Jean Sans-Terre dans son propre royaume.

<<You really can't count 1216 as a French invasion of England.>>

You can't really call 1066 a French invasion of England either. It was a Norman invasion.

« Guest » : « You can't really call 1066 a French invasion of England either. It was a Norman invasion. »

C'était en effet une invasion pilotée par le duc de Normandie. Mais ses troupes venaient de nombreuses provinces du royaume de France.

Moderators, can you do something about this "Greg"? I like French and I like France, but this character simply refuses to respect others, continually parading his wonderful knowledge of languages on what is supposed to be the English Forum.

Don't you guys know that UK Ltd is being invaded right now? Never mind 1066 and all that...what about 2006 and illegal immigrants who commit vile crimes in UK Ltd while abusing UK Ltd social welfare? Still, just think of all these Languages flooding into the Sceptered Isle......pity more and more of them are going to be sent packing with labels saying "Return to Sender"....in the appropriate Language.

And it's no use saying "you shouldn't have colonised their countries in the first place". I can't find any record of UK Ltd ever having colonised the majority of the countries these people are coming from. When did the Union flag ever fly over Bulgaria for instance? It's a shame but this situation is causing UK (Indigenous) Ltd to swing violently to the political right which is a sad state of affairs. No wonder the BNP is in the ascendant. :-(

Still, as I say, the street Languages are rich and varied.....got to somehow justify this post to meet Antimoon's criteria.

<<C'était en effet une invasion pilotée par le duc de Normandie. Mais ses troupes venaient de nombreuses provinces du royaume de France. >>

Ah, but a large number of the Norman's troops were Normans, Bretons and Flemings. It would be comparable to saying that Normandy 1944 was a British invasion of Occupied France even though only two of the five landings was made by British troops.

Greg: feel free to contradict me, I love having historical discussions! ;)

This is a century earlier than my specialised period, and I'm sure you know more about this than I do. I think Louis *should* be included in the list of Kings of England - as far as I know, and without checking, he WAS crowned as king. My point was that 1216 can't really be described as a foreign invasion in the way 1066 was. Louis had a sort of claim to the English throne, as his wife Blanche of Castile was John's niece.

By the way, he was 'Louis le Lion' not 'Coeur de Lion', wasn't he? Coeur de Lion was Richard I, brother of John Lackland (Jean Sans Terre), born in Oxford but raised in Aquitaine. He spent the last five years of his life fighting against Philippe-Auguste in France.