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Why didn't English die out?
English was originally spoken by the Angleysaxions. They died many years ago (300 years ago I think). Why didn't English die out when the Angles died out?
Latin died out. Sumerian died out. Sanskrit died out. How was it possible for english to survive?
Old English really didn't survive any more than Latin did. It evolved into Modern English (with the help of Old French), just like Latin evolved into Italian, etc.
Yes, you are right Guest, Latin is to Italian, Spanish, etc, the same as Old English is to modern English.
"Angleysaxions"
I am almost speechless. I type fast sometimes too. They speak Latin in the Vatican. One has to send them legal papers in Latin. It seems to be popular again in some places. Of course, I haven't bought my toga and sandals yet.
<<Old English really didn't survive any more than Latin did. It evolved into Modern English (with the help of Old French), just like Latin evolved into Italian, etc. >>
No. English did not evolve into Modern English with the help of Old French. It evolved eventually into Modern English with the help of Old Norse varieties. French provided a wordhoard for many borrowings but its contribution to the development of English outside of that is close to nill. <<Yes, you are right Guest, Latin is to Italian, Spanish, etc, the same as Old English is to modern English. >> No. Latin is counterpart to *West Germanic, or *Proto-Germanic. Old English is classified as a Mediaeval language, alongside other contemporary languages like Old French. (Classical) Latin contained most of the attributes of IE, whereas Old English had already sufficiently broken down to a level close to Proto-Romance and Old French.
Latin survived until the Middle Ages as well. Proto-Germanic is counterpart to Proto-Italic or Old Latin, not Latin.
Interesting topic, I am currently reading a book called "The travels of English". It treats English as a character in the book, battling their way through the years to stay alive. It is basically a historical novel made more interesting for the reader. There were many times where English was almost lost.
Cheers, Tristan <A href="http://www.mylanguagetips.com">English language tips</A>
Angley Saxons made me chuckle a wee bit - sounds like a Chinese person describing an irate lot of invaders storming the shores of 5th/6th century Britain. Why they would be irate anyway I wouldn't rightly know - all they had to do was to pick up where the Romans had left off -easy pickings with ready made roads and fortifications galore across much of the country - except Scotland north of the Antonine Wall. Many of the original Roman roads still exist today and modern highways follow their exact routes and have names like Fosse Way, Ermine Street and Watling Street, among others.
English died out in Glasgow many years ago...... English could well have succumbed to other tongues over the centuries but it never quite happened - instead of dying out it prospered by absorbing words from a variety of other languages over the years and has since become the very rich and colourful Language it is today after passing through various stages of transition. One of the main reasons why it didn't die out was, of course, the founding of the British Empire, which helped spread the English Language to all corners of the globe. It became the most widely spoken Language in the world, which is the case today. As for its future - well, nothing in this world is guaranteed except death and taxes, to use a well worn expression. It may or may not be "threatened" in time by the rise in power economically of those countries in the Eastern Hemisphere, but even in one of those up and coming countries English is already very firmly established anyway. English has certainly diversified into a whole lot of different kinds of "Englishes" but all in all I reckon that English will never cease to exist as a major Language - except in Glasgow, as I say. :-) It's still changing and evolving in various ways even in it's original home base here in Britain,
>>English died out in Glasgow many years ago......<<
It didn't really die out there per se (and by "English" I assume you mean some sort of Anglic dialect, as what would have been spoken there in the past would have been Scots, not English). What is spoken in Glasgow these days is more just a strange mixture of Scots and English dialects with its own weirdness added which really cannot be easily called specifically "Scots" or "English" but rather can be best described as a weird Anglic dialect and left at that. >>English could well have succumbed to other tongues over the centuries but it never quite happened - instead of dying out it prospered by absorbing words from a variety of other languages over the years and has since become the very rich and colourful Language it is today after passing through various stages of transition.<< The only other language that ever really was an actual threat to English was Old Norse, but the Norse did not manage to completely conquer England and and impose their own language. Rather, the Norse settlers ended up eventually speaking dialects of Late Old English and Early Middle English which had very significant Old Norse influence. Over time such got watered down, but it can still be seen in northern English English dialects today. >>English has certainly diversified into a whole lot of different kinds of "Englishes" but all in all I reckon that English will never cease to exist as a major Language - except in Glasgow, as I say. :-)<< The only way that English can "die out" out today that is realistically conceivable is by diversifying into a range of separate daughter languages (or shall we say, a continuum or multiple continua of daughter dialects) - and English as a whole today is still far, far more coherent than say, High German dialects, much the less other macrolanguages such as Arabic and Chinese (and especially if you exclude the most distinct Anglic dialects, such as Northumbrian dialects, whose status as even being "English" is up to question). I very much bet that it will be at least a good while until English reaches the level of dialect divergence present in High German, and a good while longer until it reaches the overall level of divergence of Arabic "dialects".
Travis: Excellent post as ever. Thanks. Good reading.
Just one point though....the Glasgow thing - I was jesting, as you probably know. I'm from Edinburgh and any dig at our larger neighbour is worth the effort! Glaswegians constantly do the same to us every which way they can - but it is all as a wee bit of "friendly" banter, ye ken! :- At least it really is true that non Scots do find us a whole lot easier to understand than they do when chatting with many Glaswegians, by and large! |