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From: fkrinsky
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  • Not bad, I'd give this a C. Strange to hear 'bunch' being used together with 'invasions' from an educated person, what's wrong with using the correct collective noun?

    William the Bastard did not take the British throne.

    I'm astonished that you said ass for arse!! Ass is a donkey. Arse is the English dialect for arsch. Perhaps you could explain how this simple and ancient word became so annoyingly and badly corrupted accross the herring pond. Thanks.

  • European languages where created by the Church from ancient Greek and Latin, that is 95% Greek! There is a book with 170.000 Greek words of the English language! Add to that the Greek-Latin words and there is English!

  • sound quality is unfortunately at bat pitch....I can hardly hear it

  • @rosciusameria Sorry bout that. I dont know why it is ok on some players and bad on others. This is an old lo def video...Maybe GS will make some more new HD ones! Thanks for watching. Grammar Spice

  • The grammar's assuredly OFF, but I just got my dictionary out, and am playing around.

  • Min nama is Aaron. Ic eom 34 ieldu. Ic waes cild ond Ic eom an icestre. Min gehyrde in winter waes andfenge. Min cynn waes fram Kent. Min fader waes iethgeorn, min moeder waes iethgeorn. We handlian geoguth.

    Note: Some of these words were originally written w/ runes--runes that I aint got. Thusly, I substituted them w/the modern ‘th’ spelling.

  • @666caimbirdofhell Thanks for the translation. I think hwaet was the forerunner of What! meaning Lo! or Hey! or nowadays it would be Yo! 

  • Comment removed

  • Hwaet!

    Ic lufu eow beginnan. Ic lufu eow sceawian.

    Thancian.

  • @666caimbirdofhell Thanks for the comment. Will you please translate it? GS

  • @fkrinsky Something like, "Enjoy'd the intro, lov'd the show. Thanx."

  • your so cool you know, thanks from UK LONDON!!!

  • @xXLiverpoolFCXx Thanks to you. I was in Liverpool 2 summers ago...I love all the pelicans on the buildings...and of course I went to the Cavern and bought some guitar picks at the Beatles store....

    Rock on Dude...GS(I'm trying to be cool )

  • @fkrinsky Arguably, it's just a bumpkin's version of the same thing.

  • cool =) and yeah, before the great vowel shift it sounds like german!

    which is to be expected i suppose..

  • @Zypakoi Glad you enjoyed it. GS

  • Thank you very much. I'm sharing your lecture with my ESOL students in Chile in my english literature class.

  • @videosaful I am glad you find it useful! Best wishes to you and your students. GS

  • Very interesting and informative. Though the video quality could be a lot better and maybe...you need to blink less? Its a bit distracting.

  • @VoodooVelma Glad you found it interesting despite its flaws. Remember that GrammarSpice is an amateur with dry eyes:)GS

  • GS - I love this, but it is soooo scratchy and crackly! It is extremely interesting, and i wish it was clear enough so I could share with my students at school. :( Can you make a better copy?

  • @song4mozart Sorry audio is scratchy. The video was made with the movie function of a still photo camera. It will be more acceptable to your students when they realize that it was actually filmed in 1387. GS

  • u deserve a thumbs up

  • @darkguyitsme Thanks. GS

  • I'm glad you enjoyed it.

    C'est mon plaisir de vous aider.

    Did you watch my two videos about our trip to the Dordogne? We really loved our trip to France and hope to visit again.

  • merci madame pour ce travail très intérressant

    sincèrement merci

    i wondered about the influence of normand conquest for the english language

  • Thanks for your interest. You are quite correct! GS

  • Many words, even word order & cases are like in modern german.

    Though english is a germanic language it contains more latin words than some roman languages.

  • The English are not descendants of Saxons and "Vikings" which is a topic in itself of a "Viking". The English are a melting pot of dozens of cultures. Careful with ur words there "rebelsword".

  • @vwbora1point8T Duh!!...

  • Interesting video! Ic þancie þe

  • Nice video, concise, thank you. Does anyone know anywhere online where I can find a list of Celtic words still in use in English today? Ive had an idea for an essay I have to hand in by November 10th, and need some Celtic words for my intro.

    Thanks again for the vid. Very useful, and waffle free!

  • @IDrinkYourMilkshake8

    Glad you like the video. Look up Mutton, coomb, and crag. I believe they are celtic in origin. GS

  • thank you that was very helpful i'm studying language and literature ... the english history is clear now thanks to you sum up a complete chapter in my book

  • @modhilah I am glad you found it helpful. GS

  • explained better than my teacher. maybe i wont fail English this year

  • @GuppyMister Hope you get an A+. Thanks for your interest. GS

  • very good

  • @Ovnis19 Glad you enjoyed it. GS

  • Thank You Madam! Huh, it is too far meaningful which can be change.

  • The normans actually destroyed the english language. The germanic part got reduced so hard. Grammar got so easy, almost no morphology, less germanic words. I'm glad i'm a Fleming, and that i speak dutch, my language still is more than 90% germanic. I hate all non-germanic influences.

  • @Metaldude1945 but Dutch is still the ugliest language in the world, and only 20 million people in the world speak you awful and ugly language.

    dutch destroys my ears.

  • @burtoncaly Firstly I think you mean the Dutch spoken in Holland. If you listen to Flemish and the more southern variants of the Netherlands of Dutch, you'll hear that they are much more softer than the Dutch i think you heard. Second, i think you misunderstand me. I don't hate English at all, i love the language to be more exact! But i think it's just too bad that it had so much latin influences. Now only 50% of the vocabulary is Germanic. Compare Water = Water, Deed = daad, Make = maken,.. etc

  • Thank you Englishmen. I am speaking the words that came out of the mouths of Danish rapist and murderers. Your ancestors...

  • @Rac665 - You're welcome.Enjoy the greatest language in the world. Where were your ancestors from? I envy you your certainty that your ancestors were so pure!

  • first ; very usefull information . thanks

    but im just wondering how these english speeking ( anglo,s ) people are very proud of their history and language ? while compare with my language ( 6000 years ) it has no history . even though in here many time i happen to be warn for my wrong spell . yet its so ironic that english is the only language has no proper grammar (i have many evidence for that ) .

  • Thanks for your interest.Sorry the audio isn't better.GS

  • A -

    I had to include the "-" because the audio is a bit off. But the content is A material.

    Thanks for this.

  • @Baigandine Yes i know, but for example in Jersey or Guernesey they call it "Norman French".

  • Interesting stuff....

  • I thought I heard 1304 AD . . . as of the date William Wallace was captured the year was 1305 AD, in the town of Robroyston.

    I enjoyed watching your video.

  • Informative, thanks a lot. I wonder, where could I find texts or articles online that show or teach the language of William the conqueror and his knights? How was it called? Norman language? Thanks.

  • @GekkoKamen If you google Norman Language you will get lots of articles from Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica online plus some sound recordings of the spoken language.

  • Comment removed

  • Just befor 3:15 it was the word "British Throne - but it was actually only brought into existence as of 1772. This is likely just a mischaracterization. ANGLORUM / English vs. British - Britian. Back then you still had subregional identities such as Wessex, Anglia etc..

  • What she calls "French language" is "Norman language"... it's not the same here in France!!

  • @NORMANRING But French has changed a great deal. Dictionaries don't refer to "Norman" but to "Old French." Similarly, Anglo Saxon is called "Old English" but is incomprehensible to English speakers today.

  • the English we speak now has changed very much, it is mixed germanic and latin with also norse words.nowadays there is more Latin influence that has gradually crept in, the french put a lot into the English language

  • Very informative, and well done.

  • @asheguns I am glad you enjoyed it. GS

  • You are very Modest.

  • You are Beautiful!

  • @AnonymousWhitePerson "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" :) GS

  • the process of simplification of anglo-saxon morphology in contact with old-norse in 8-9 centuries could be sth like this:

    "Ic selle the that hors the draegeth minne waegn

    Ek mun selja ther hrossit er dregr vagn mine"

    where there already was a common germanic colloquial ground. gradually the phonetic differences were levelled out, the gigantic old-french vocabulary input completed and here we have the amazing modern English:-)

  • @KalleSacanaBlomkvist

    I see - really interesting - thank you.

    Yes, have also noticed how you - with a Scand. background - can often understand whole sentences of AS, , without ever having learnt it ;-)

  • @Bjowolf2

    What does "mun" mean btw.? Wish/ want to ? ( as in "monne" & "mon" (~wondering) )

    And even very close to modern Danish & Swedish and English actually:

    Jeg [yaigh] sælger dig den HESt (HOrSe) der drager (trækker) min vogn

    Jag sälgar deg den hesten som (där?) drar min vagn ( I think ;-) )-

    I [aigh !] (want to?) sell 'thee' the horse that draws my wagon.

  • @Bjowolf2

    "säljar" hettar det vel LOL - BEEEP!

  • "and here we have the amazing modern English"

    I was raised speaking Gaelic by my grandmother until I was 4 years old. It would be easy fror me to be bitter about English replacing Gaelic but I must admit, it's an amazing language.

  • Nice informative video. By the way you spelt 'Welsh' wrong..small mistake but bothersome to a welsh person I assure you :p

  • @droptheleash0 I am sorry about the misspelling of your nationality! I have been corrected on that ,and I accepted blame a long time ago, but there is not a convenient way to fix it at this point. My bad. But thanks for not berating me too harshly!

  • @fkrinsky No worries :-) I did look at the previous comments to see if it had been said but couldn't see any, just wanted to point it out. Thanks for the video !

    Hwyl o Gymru

    Bye from Wales

  • 2nd precision: The way English speakers spell vowels nowadays doesn't come from middle English or Roman language (French or latin). So where does it come from? Why having moved from the Germanic pronunciation "name" to the modern "name"?

    I'd be grateful to know. Thank you.

  • @hanterkant Sorry, but I don't know why the pronunciation changed...linguists talk about the shape of the mouth etc...but probably regional ways of speaking develop and then everyone in the area picks it up in an accent.

    Thanks for your interest in my video.

  • @hanterkant

    No-one really knows! A big mystery, but there are many theories.

    Some speculate that if some vowels begin to slide, then others have

    to follow suit to avoid confusion between otherwise similar words.

  • @hanterkant

    Of course my "crazy" theory was mostly a joke, but maybe things like this will

    happen when you really start mixing people with two rather different languages.

    Even during Shakespeare's time many of the clearly French words were still pronounced in a French fashion - eg. [ mAr-ri-Ache] for "marriage" etc.

  • @Bjowolf2 In English, as I have heard, you still pronounce "garage" in a way close to French (while French people, when speaking English, tend to pronounce it like "marriage"). But maybe because this word arrived in English after the Great Vowel shift?

  • @hanterkant

    Yes, you are right ;-) - So I assume that we borrowed this word via French instead of English. And yes, this word is of course of much later origin.

    We also have "fromage" pronouced in a French way, but here the meaning

    has shifted to a type of "pudding" ( maybe orig, with cheese in it ? ;-) ).

  • @hanterkant

    But the common modern English pronounciation is now similar to that of "marriage"

    - namely [ ga-ratsch ] ( circa). But maybe some still say [ gA-rArsh ] ?

  • @Bjowolf2 A good point for "fromage", I didn't know :-) . I have been told there is a difference between a "garage" (-ash) for a car repair shop and garage (-aitch) for the "car room" in a private house. But I don't know if this difference is correct in UK, USA, or anywhere.

  • @hanterkant

    Ah, I see, yes - think I may have heard that - but isn't that a US thing?

    Btw. I meant "fromage" in Danish - in case you missed that? ;-) I think we mainly got our "French" words directly - or via German - so they usually retained their French pronounciation (or something similar at least LOL ).

    Others are "miljø" [millieu] = environment, jargon [chAr-goung],

    bagage [ba-ga-sje/che] ( with flat a's though ;-) - a D. "illness" LOL )

    jaloux [cha-lou] etc.

  • @hanterkant

    And "glamour" is pronunced in "Fr." for obvious reasons,

    even though it's not a Fr. word orig. ;-) ( Scottish, I think, but not sure )

  • I like your ability to summarize 1000 years in less than 10 min! But I would like to give 2 precisions:

    1. England was not invaded by Anglo-Saxons. It is the contrary: England was created by the Anglo-Saxons. Before them, the country was named "Britannia" by the former Romans invaders. This gave us the modern words "Britain" and "Brittany" (the part of Celtic tribes who moved to the continent after the Anglo-Saxon invasion)

  • @hanterkant

    Nonsense! - The Celtic peoples were living there before the Anglo-Saxon

    arrived from what is now Nortern Germany, Denmark & Hollland / Friesland.

    SOME of them were romaniced brittons, who spoke Latin - other spoke Celtic languages. When the Romans pulled back their forces because of problems back home after 410 AD, the Romanic Brittons in teh South were more or less on their own and were coming under more and more pressure from the Northern Celtic tribes.

  • Comment removed

  • @Bjowolf2

    And therefore they sent for the Germanic Angles, Saxons, Frisians

    and Jutes to be mercernaries from 449 AD and onwards - having no idea that these strangers would take over the whole show within a couple of centuries.

    Look it up ;-)

    There is a very important lesson there for our naive politicians to learn ;o)

  • @Bjowolf2 Thanks for your interest and your input. GS

  • @fkrinsky

    Fin' - mange / many tak / thanks. Du er [air] (are) velkommen ;-)

    Jeg [yAIGH *)] håber [ho-ber] du kan se, hvad jeg skriver (scribe, ie. "write")?

    *) Act. the same word as I [aigh], even though it's a bit hard to see ;-)

  • Having trouble understanding, so basicly did we speak French, and we changed spelling varients and prounceation?

  • What NO?? Before 450 the people of Britain spoke Celtic dialects then the anglosaxons invaded and brought with them their germanic language.

    Then Normady invasion brought with it French and Latin

  • @Jejkan95

    Precisely ! - thank you.

    Well, the Latin was already there because of the Romans

    and the early church, but apart from that you are right.

    And more Latin arrived later with "re-christianisation" after

    the pagan Anglo-Saxons turned Christians.

  • @CueWunAye

    The upperclasses of mainly Norman descent spoke Norman French after 1066

    until around the late 14'th century ( and Latin in the churches ), whereas the common people / lower classes spoke first Anglo Saxon / Old English, then Early Middle English, a mix of AS and ON (Old Norse / "Danish" ) with a much simplified and more modern ( Nordic style!) grammar compared to that of AS / OE.

  • @CueWunAye

    Parliament held is sessions solely in F. until 1362 ( I think?), where E. was also introduced as a secondary ( or tertiary rather) language, and from the late14'th century E. took over as the language of the parliament. But tons of words of French and Latin descent also became part of ME during this period.

  • This is a very good summary! And I like your hair-do! :-)

  • @burlygurly That's very sweet of you burlygurly.A little known fact is that Grammar

    Spice has very long hair.

  • Why do you call it Frernch? They were not French, they were 'Normans'. The Norman language is a dialect of French. And they inforced Norman language on the Anglo-Saxons.

  • @CueWunAye --it was still French, though(a French influenced by Danish). Norman-French was later detered and replaced by the more popular Parisian French.

  • @CueWunAye At this time, there was no standardized French as we know it nowadays. "Normand" was just a kind of French, as was any French from any other part of the French kingdom. Anyway it was very close to the French spoken at the royal court in Paris. Especially the nobles, those who moved to England, they took special care of speaking a fine and cultured French, which differs a lot from the French spoken by the peasants.

  • @hanterkant around 33% of words modern french (french today speack in France) and around 40% of old french = around 70%

    Exemple : bacon, toaster are old french words who do not speack in France today but this words are french^^. lot of people think this word are not french but it's wrong, it's just because this words are the old french who not speaking today in France.

  • A+ Grammar Spice. I truly enjoyed this informative little video!

  • Thanks. I am glad you enjoyed it. Since you gave me an A+, I'll re-acknowledge my sources: Most of the info was taken from the PBS series "The Story of English" narrated by fellow Canadian Robert Mac Neil. You might want to check out the episode entitled "The Mother Tongue" GS

  • O, thank you.

    This was Delightful. Wonderful.

  • Thank you, milady.

    This was wonderful.

  • Glad you enjoyed it. GS

  • Middle English is a squalid Grammatical Gutter, a Syntactical Sewer.

  • That was very informative.Why did the great vowel shift take place.

  • I'd guess that it happened for the same reasons that all places have regional dialects and accents...people in the same neighborhoods tend to pronounce words in the same way...England was a different neighborhood from France and English vocabulary , colored by the Germanic languages began to differ from French...but that is just my guess. Maybe other scholars would have another reason.

    Glad you liked the video. GS

  • French ( Norman upperclass ) getting their vowels all wrong, when they HAD TO start speaking English, as no one else was able to or bothered speaking French any longer ;-)

    Same as they do today really :-)

    ( think about " 'Allo, 'Allo", if you know that

    famous comedy series - set in France in WWII )

  • @Bjowolf2 Why French rulers are getting to speak English? Probably because they were outnumbered by English speakers and the rare schools to learn French are devoted to the nobility. They also started to mix with former English nobility. Their children, more or less, started to speak more and more in English. Finally, you may have a political reason: ruling by themselves such a powerful kingdom, they started to keep distance with France, the "mother kingdom".

  • @hanterkant

    Well, I was obviously joking - but of course there is some truth hidden down there. When "foreigners" pick up a strange langage they tend to get certain sounds "wrong".

  • @Bjowolf2

    If they hadn't we might still be able to speak to our English cousins directly - before the GVs, their sounds and many simple words were far closer to ours. I have heard reconstructed examples of Early Middle English and it's quite surprising to hear how many of the simple words and vowels that are quite similar to ours - EVEN TODAY!

  • @hanterkant

    Yes, outnumbered - and probably the Black Death in 1348 and onwards

    was the last straw, which finally pushed the surviving nobles into speaking in E.

    I believe the E. parliament began having its sessions solely in E. towards the end of the 14'th century - and partially already from 1362!

  • @hanterkant french rulers are not learn english, even richard heart of lion didn't know speack the english.^^ The french was the official language in the england monarchi during more 300 years.only after 300 years the french kings or french descendant start to spoke english. because in this period only the french lord and the french language was considerated important.

  • @snoopyvoodoo The lords spoke some french that was incorporated into their norse tongue, the french didnt rule england it was the normans whom were norse origin, the inhabitants of england spoke their own tongue(old english), the english are decendants from saxon/celt/ norse which is norman anyway not a single ounce of frankish or gallic is in the english gene pool.

    and the english language is more germanic than french or latin.

    English have no links to french. read the history again!!

  • @RebelSword

    "During the century and a half after the Conquest, there is no English history. The French Kings of England rose to an eminence which was the wonder of all nations (). The Conqueror and his descendants were not Englishmen: most of them were born in France: they spent their lives in France: their speech was French: every high office was for a Frenchman: every acquisition on the Continent estranged them from our population".

    Thomas Babington Macauley

  • @gipcambero There language was a mix of norman and french. And if my parents(english) had me in china, doesnt mean i'm chinese!, no masses of normans or french occupied england only select few of lords and the royalty were not french pfft..the english (angles/saxons) remained in england and were not driven out or killed, the normans eventually left or were mixed into the english gene pool hence the dna of english is mostly saxon and celt...

  • @RebelSword According to many serious survey the main influence of English language come from French, it's only a true fact. 34% of English words come from French it's more than any others languages.

    that's not mean that English has French blood, but the cultural influence of France is obvious.

  • @RebelSword Without this invasion in 1066 English language will be a really ugly language, sound like german, pretty the same than dog's bark.

    thanks to our invasion. English was embellished and it sound now quite good.

    you can heard the huge difference between a guy who speak English and a guy who speak German.

  • @burtoncaly actually i think german sounds quite masculine and cool, as for the french and italian i think they sound very feminine, The normans(norse) introduced their mixed language norman-french to our now english language not the french.

  • @RebelSword French and Italian sound really different believe me...

    the "norse" was only some thousands ppl who came in France, this tiny population became completly French an Christians fews months later. you don't want to admit the truth and the French domination in England. I think it's useless to continue to speak with you, and I don't want to lose my time anymore so it's my last comment here. you can see this video ''England colony of France"

    watch?v=57J_IFzFmYk

    watch?v=VImdObpQ9SQ

  • @RebelSword Totally wrong, the french who take the power in england and civilisated our country was not vicking but french Gallo-Roman like the others french of this period. After the war in Chartres there are only 10 000 vicking who mixed with the french population in Normandy.

    Moreover not only french of Normandy take the power in england but french of many many other french region "Ile de France, Picardy, Flandres, Poitou, Anjou, , Britany, Aquitaine, Burgundy, Berry".

  • @RebelSword 95% of the conquerant was french (Gallo-Roman) and only around 5% vicking blood.

    Read afgain the history, i'm not english and i know far better the history of you'r country.

    Moreover english is not makes of 33% french words but 70% french words because 33% french words + around 40% old french words = total around 70% of english words are french words.

  • @snoopyvoodoo Your all wrong!...DNA tests have proven that the english are decendants from saxons/vikings and celts sorry no french connection whatsoever!...language is words not bloood so jog on.

  • Thank you for the video. I'm in the middle of reading Canterbury Tales side-by-side, and I am curious about roughly how much of the written language variations are due to a lack of a "standardized" spelling versus just simple language migration over time. Hard to frame the question, but I hope that's clear.

    Thank you for your language and grammar videos, I hope you make more!

  • Thanks for your enthusiasasm. I hope you are enjoying Canterbury Tales and these videos make it a little easier for you.

    My source (PBS)tells me that Caxton and other printers spelled wordsas they heard them(phonetically)and also that pronunciation was regional-hence lots of variation before the language got standardized. The same word is even spelled differently on the same page so I guess standardizing wasn't on printers' minds at the time.Maybe a more knowledgeable viewer will comment. GS

  • Ah, that's what I thought. I knew that was for sure the case with pre-Gutenberg scribes, but wasn't sure when English was really actually somewhat standardized (not that it is now ;-). I hadn't noticed yet varying spellings of the same words, but I'll keep an eye out for them, too.

    Thanks again!

  • I thanks the norman to have brought the french civilization (French language, roman and gothic art) to england

  • Interesting and correct video but the audio was terrible! If another is made please sort that out!

  • I'm sorry the audio didn't work for you. I have a better HD camera now, so future work should be clearer. Thanks for your interest. GS

  • In the 6th-9th centuries the Old-nordic contributed with some 30% of active vocabulary: window  vindöga, husband husbonde etc and grammar words: they de, their deras etc

    Now the traffic is the opposite. A large number of English words have entered into Swedish, in most cases replacing good Sw. words: leasa hyra, deleta ta bort, player förförare etc. Languages renew each other all the time

  • @kajro57

    them, sky, knife, skirt, skip ( -> skipper), sling, dwell, dream ... the list is long ;-)

    Yes, slly really when "hyra" (S) / "hyre" (D) is the same word as the English "hire".

  • @Bjowolf2 It makes our lives, doesn´t it :) it´s not only the vocabulary.

    the most astounding kinship lies the deep syntactic & idiomatic structure

    Have a good day = swed ha en bra dag is a perfect match but the Germ hab einen guten Tag is non-idiomatic.

    Given the dramatic simplification of the rich anglo-saxon morphology due to Old-Norse influence, the notion of English as a west-germanic langu is indeed very inprecise

  • @KalleSacanaBlomkvist

    Yes, you are right - I was "always" puzzled by this. Why are the Scandinavian languages in many ways - basic words & simplified grammar and ways of expressing things, word order - "now" so much closer to E. than its original

    W. Germanic brothers?

  • @KalleSacanaBlomkvist

    You would have expected the opposite. It's in many respects as if English jumped linguistic branch - from W. to N. Germanic - and maybe that revolution also spread over here? ( so that we too moved away from the complex ON grammar a la Icelandic ). Otherwise it's difficult to understand why & how E. and Scandinavian (S, D & N) evolved in such parallel fashions.

  • @Bjowolf2 categorizing is sometimes an arbitrary exercise if we wish to include everything eg I looked closely at the vocabulary of Albanian & really you can consider it IE if u want

    the composition of English is SO unique that it escapes any categorization

    it stands to reason that the mingling between anglo-saxons & "vikings" called for simplification, some pidginizied vernacular :-) the tough one the siplification of S, Da & N

  • @KalleSacanaBlomkvist

    Yes, it certainly seems that way - it depends a lot on which version of E you

    talk about. So it's a bit imprecise to call it a WG language, without specifying what you mean.

    Ah, but I thought Albianian was categorized as IE? Pretty sure I have seen that in some diagrams ?!?!

  • @Bjowolf2 yes Alb is considered IE, but an isolate, no IE sibblings :-) maybe ALb r pre IE??? look at this:

    Latin mensis, novus, nasus, mater

    Sanskrit mãs, nava, nãs, matar

    Persian mãh, nau, bini, mãdar

    Lithuan méno, naujas, nosis,motina

    albania muaj, iri, nundë, nëne

    basque hilabethe, berri, südür, ama

  • @KalleSacanaBlomkvist

    OK, thought so ;-)

    Aha - yes, I see what you mean - how strange!

    Not really what you would expect from an IE language.

    So why is it then classified as IE (isolate)?

    Or is it maybe a mix of two or more lanuages? ( like E :-) )

  • @KalleSacanaBlomkvist

    Yes, what happened there? Was it returning Vikings that brought with them a new way of using the language? Or via trade and cultural exchange with our E. kinsmen , which didn't stop after 1066. Early ME has many words and features that sound very Scand. to my ears - sometimes you can understand a whole sentence or phrase without even thinking.

  • @KalleSacanaBlomkvist

    Also we may have got some of this indirectly via Dutch, Frisian and Low German

    later on ( "begynd" ~ "begin" instead of "börja" - as you Swedes say ;-) - is one

    of these, I think ).

    But still the (very old) irregular verbs are still far more parallel between E and S,N&D - and then we never underwent the second Germanic sound shift

    ( mainly t /d --> ss ) on either side of the North Sea ( only in some later borrowed words ).

  • @Bjowolf2

    Another interesting things is that we in DK inherited their peculiar OE letter Æ/ æ,

    when the English and Irish munks came over to to civilise us after the Viking period (around ca. 1100 AD - one of them was act. called Ælnoth, so it was probably him LOL ), so now we - and the Norwegians, Faroeses and Icelanders - are waiting impatiently to see some appreciation for that effort over many centuries ( and for being rediculed for it ;-) ).

  • @kajro57

    Also "take" from ON "taka" ( "ta" in Sw., now "tage" in D) and "give"= give in D.

    Before that you said "neme" in E. for "take" as in German "nehmen" ;-)

  • English has words from all over the world. "juke" in juke box comes from a Nigerian language. "Shampoo, pundit, moghul,pajamas, bungalow" comes from languages of India "harikari" comes from Japanese. "bazaar" comes from Persian. "pow wow and hootenany" come from native American languages. "zero" comes from Arabic. Many many languages have made English a defacto global language and given it the richest vocabulary of any language in world history.

  • Thanks for your contribution and your interest. GS

  • The Normans weren't French. They were a mashup of Franks and Danes, mostly.

    The Normans spoke a kind of langue d'oil, but not French.

    The French variant of the langue d'oil did not emerge dominant until the late 1200s.

    By then the Normans had been out of power in England for 100 years.

    The Normans did not speak French when they ruled England.

    Btw, King Guillaume "Le Conquerant" de Normandie is my 27 x great-grandfather.

  • France is still called Frankreich ( the kingdom of the Franks) by the Germans! In 1066 Normandy (as most other duchees ) was a vassal state owing loyalty to the king of France. William (your alleged ancestor) was knighted by the King of France Henry I . At that time barely the area within Ile-de-France (a province) belonged to the Crown of France. And today the 11th century Bayeux tapestries depicting the Norman conquest are definitely French!

  • @jeanpaulrenoir Mais non!

  • So it makes sense why England would claim France. Because if France had conquered England and all English heirs were of French origin, then by blood they can claim the French thrown.

    And this is what led to France almost being conquered by the English.

  • @Tom101229

    True - some of the socalled "English" kings spent far more time in "France" (Aquitaine) than in England.

  • @Tom101229 say"So it makes sense why England would claim France. Because if France had conquered England and all English heirs were of French origin, then by blood they can claim the French thrown."

    Totally true, the french Lords have teritories in France before becoming the kings of england. this is why when they became king and Queen of England they integrated to them teritories in France with the kingdom of England. But it is not a military conquest, it is just political.

  • @Tom101229 After have knows the continuation, war the one hundred year old, finally the Saxon anglo were just the soldiers of the French Lords in England to fight the French Lords in France. Like has colony rebellion against the country origine.

  • @jeanpaulrenoir

    Yes, good point - also Frankrig in D and Frankrike in Sw. ;-)

  • The actual french is langue of oil, that's why so many word in english are the same in french

  • @gipcambero I've explained this already. Thanks though.

  • 29% of the English Diction is French an another 29% of the English Diction is Latin.

    English by its diction is more Latin or Romance Language based than it is Germanic.

  • @Tom101229

    No, that depends very much on how you meassure it. Yes, there are lots of Latin

    and French words, but many of them are not used very often.

    If you look at the basic vocabulary it's very much Germanic, and the grammar has a very North Germanic touch ( ie. higly simplified compared to that of OE / AS - and the other Germanic languages ).

  • @Bjowolf2

    And those basic (Germanic) words that form the whole skeleton, and which make English very easy to pick up for us Scandinavians, are on average used around 70 % of the time in normal speech and communication according to some studies.

  • @Bjowolf2 "Normal speech and communication"? What's normal for Joe the car mechanic and William the aristocrat differ, but William's speech to him is just as normal. It's because the conjunctions, the prepositions, the pronouns i.e. those words one has no choice but to return to on a regular basis are primarily Germanic, if you want to call that the "skeleton."

  • Comment removed

  • @Tom101229 @Tom101229 It's why the citizens of Bordeaux preferred to be included in the kingdom of England because the kings and Queens of England of the house of Plantagenets was french lords originating in their area. The French garrison was ejected by the citizens of Bordeaux, who then gleefully opened the gates to the english. Most of Gascony followed Bordeaux's example and welcomed the english home.

  • @TruthAxe

    Pretty sure you will find that families that ruled England in the 1200s and 1300s

    were all of Norman descent - and that they spoke some sort of "French".

    It wasn't until the latter part of the 1300s and early 1400s that things really began to change.

  • @Bjowolf2 Why speculate? You should research before spreading mistakes.

    The last of the Norman kings was Stephen, grandson to the Bastard, who sat from 1135 1154.

    French was a dialect of the langue d'oil, but was NOT the dialect the Normans spoke.

    The Normans spoke the langue d'oil dialect called Norman in Normandy, which became Guernésiais in Guernsey, Jèrriais in Jersey, Sercquiais in Sark and Auregnais in Alderney, which is now extinct.

    As

  • @TruthAxe

    I wasn't speculating. Most of the noble families, from which later royal dynasties would spring were by then ALSO of Norman descent. You are talking about the direct lineage from the Will the Bastard ;-)

  • @Bjowolf2

    I see - so it wasn't your "standard" French, but no doubt something closely related to it. I see that French is also one of the languages of this family of Northern French langauges of dialects.

    Thanks for the info - very interesting ;-)

  • @Bjowolf2 Yes. You're talking about my ancestors. I know all about them.

  • @TruthAxe

    Ok, good for you ;-)

    So you should also know that part then ...

  • hey people, what could be the possible reason why people on mountains does not have the same language as the people on land in a country? please give me websites that can feed up my queries regarding to this.. thx a lot,.

  • @gibsonslasher22

    Lack of oxygen perhaps ? ;-)