It is? How much Anglo-Saxon is left after the French invaded in 1066? It is rare to find the raw guttural, monosyllabic, Germanic words in modern English. He who rules get to set the what language is spoken.
I can't say for sure, but I've heard that Winston Churchill's soundbite "We shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them in the fields, we shall fight them in the hills. We shall never surrender." Is composed 100% of words derived from Anglo-Saxon -- with one exception: surrender is derived from French.
A French teacher in Canada, drew up English words and a French counterpart. Though not exact of course, there was a connection. The word "fume" or like that was applied to smoking. Fumes (cough cough) and so on.
There are even a tiny percentage of surviving Scandinavian names. The surname Bourne also used as a word. As you know, and I take the liberty of using your post, to add something, English evolved from old German and old French. Some latin thrown in.
Yes the French ruled and how. William the Conqueror was a bit of a "bastard". LOL
>>It is rare to find the raw guttural, monosyllabic, Germanic words in modern English. He who rules get to set the what language is spoken.<<
Rare?!
“[T]he General Service List (GSL), listing the 2000 most frequent (and therefore most basic) English words, is made up by 50.98 percent of words of Germanic origin.” - The Origins of Euphemisms and Swear Words in the English Language, by Judith Huber
The aristocracy spoke Norman-French up until Henry V, a different language than the general population. Henry V was the first Norman ruler who's primary language was English. Keep in mind, the "French" who took control of England were of mostly Germanic stock & the French they spoke was adopted by them after they gained control of a good chunk of "France".
It is rare to find the raw guttural, monosyllabic, Germanic words in modern English.
Monosyllabic? When is the last time you've read Beowulf in Old English?
He who rules get to set the what language is spoken.
You'd think, but it didn't actually work that way.
Funnily enough, almost every word in that sentence is from an Old English/Germanic root.
Funnily enough, almost every word in that sentence is from an Old English/Germanic root.
English is not at all like Dutch, Norse, Danish or French!
Up until recent years the process of creating Creole languages had not been much studied, but now it has, and like many other things hidden in plain sight, the secrets are out.
A lot. The Normans continued to speak French among the nobility, but the masses did not. The language of Chaucer's stories bear more resemblance to Beowulf than to the Chansons of France.
It is rare to find the raw guttural, monosyllabic, Germanic words in modern English. He who rules get to set the what language is spoken.
There are many, many Germanic words in English. And Latinate, and Nordic and others. English is a polyglot, which freely borrows.
English borrows words from all languages, but the structure of English is closer to German than to the Romance languages.