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To: Renfield
A fascinating theory. Although there goes my incentive to ever learn Old English.

I notice that he says Middle English was a product of the merger of Old English and the Scandinavian language spoken in England. I always understood that Norman French was the greatest factor in the shift from Old to Middle English.

28 posted on 11/29/2012 4:08:57 PM PST by Zionist Conspirator (Ki-hagoy vehamamlakhah 'asher lo'-ya`avdukh yove'du; vehagoyim charov yecheravu!)
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To: Zionist Conspirator; All

Norman French added a lot of vocabulary, but the language structure was not much affected. German nouns and Latin/French verbs are totally different from English, and much harder to learn. Observed by one who flunked German in high school, and almost flunked Spanish before finally catching on. Now speak decent Spanish and have studied some Italian, French and Portuguese.


70 posted on 11/30/2012 10:55:57 PM PST by gleeaikin
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