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To: LoneRangerMassachusetts
Interesting study anyway. I think we are all able to learn something even if there are parts of it that are politically correct. You are quite right about the Germanic language. I believe about 15% of the old German survives. For example sword and earth.

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

30 posted on 09/28/2007 8:18:30 AM PDT by Peter Libra
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To: Peter Libra

I saw a documentary on this that had an interesting take. It said that we often have two words in English for the same thing, one German, and one French, but that the French variant usually is subtly different, adding a richness of detail to the language that many other languages lack. For example, well to take yours, smoke and fume. Smoke means one thing, fume basically means the same but has completely different connotations.


34 posted on 09/28/2007 8:35:00 AM PDT by ichabod1 ("Self defense is not only our right, it is our duty." President Ronald Reagan)
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To: Peter Libra; LoneRangerMassachusetts
From Oppenheimer's book:

"My favourite piece of linguistic trivia is evidence of Norman pidgin surviving today in English words for live domestic animals and French ones for dead meat. Presumably, the Norman lord would ask his steward to arrange roasts of boeuf, porc and poulet, and the latter would round up cows, swine and hens from the Saxon serfs. A thousand years later, we now have beef, pork and poultry as meat on the butcher's tray and the Saxon animals still alive in the fields."

My mother, a Southern farm girl, would often say (when I was a child), 'I'm going to get a poulet for dinner tonight.' (That usually meant fried chicken for dinner)

47 posted on 09/28/2007 9:31:01 AM PDT by blam (Secure the border and enforce the law)
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To: Peter Libra
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.

The Scandinavians also gave us our pronouns: they, them, their, she. Also a few common words: call, get, hit, husband, knife, law, leg, odd, same, skin, take, want, wrong.

English is classified as a Germanic language because of its grammatical structure. Its closest relative is Frisian, still spoken in the eastern part of the Netherlands. French had a great influence on English, but mostly in contributing a lot of words to English. However, French did not for the most part alter the grammar of English.

For example, like all Germanic languages English has modal verbs: will, would, shall, should, may, might, can, could, ought. French doesn't have these modal verbs, though it expresses the same ideas with its verb system derived from Latin. Also English has a progressive tense: I am going, I was going. French doesn't have a progressive tense. Also, English usually places the adjective before the noun. Except for a few common adjectives, French usually places the adjective after the noun. And look what I just did with the adverb "usually". I put it before the verb. French wouldn't do that. And there are a lot of other reasons for classifying English as a Germanic language and not a Romance language like French.

Yes, English borrowed thousands of words from French during the Norman occupation of England. But now the current is flowing in the other direction. This is why you find the words "le parking" and "le jogging" and "le big" and many others from English in French today.

54 posted on 09/28/2007 10:12:34 AM PDT by stripes1776
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