OFF: English (was Mountain Grill)

[Arjan Hulsebos]

Carl Edlund Anderson wrote:

> On 23-Feb-2005 10:18, Stephe Lindas wrote:
>
>> Would the Saxon part of Anglo-saxon, not be German? I'm no historian,
>> but weren't alot of the Romans that occupied Briton of Sarmatian and
>> German descent, rather than Italian?
>
>
> As far as can be told, post-Roman Britain received a fair deal of
> immigration from the European coasts of the North Sea -- the areas that
> are today the Netherlands, Friesland, northern Germany, and Jutland.

Well, a couple of things happened after the collapse of the Roman
empire. First, there was the invasion of the Huns, causing a
continent-wide migration towards the west. Then there were the Vikings.
Then the French invaded England in 1066. All of them left their marks in
the English language as we know it.

> Most of these immigrants probably spoke dialects of a language ancestral
> to those lanugages still spoken in those regions today (Dutch, Frisan,
> Low German, etc.).  Parts of Northern Germany are known as a "Saxony" in
> English (German "Sachsen"), and there are still many in this region who
> speak Niederdeutsch (or Plattdeutsch), a Germanic language more closely
> related to English than Standard High German (Hochdeutsch).  Dutch
> (Nederlands) is also closer to English than is Hochdeutsch, though
> English's closest relative is Frisan (with relatively few speakers
> today, but not yet extinct).

As a matter of fact, an odd 10 different tongues
(languages/dialects/whatever, the difference between them is rather
arbitrary) are spoken in the Netherlands alone, and they can differ from
one another quite substantially. I bet the same holds true for northern
Germany and Denmark.

Dutch is closer to German than to English, especially syntactically.
That's not surprising, as both Dutch and German branched off from
mediaeval Plattdeutsch. I've read a bit of "das Nibelungenlied", which
was written around 1200, and found it to read almost like an old Dutch
dialect.

> In reality, what we think of as "Old English" was probably created
> through a bit of a mish-mashing of features from the various dialects of
> "North Sea Germanic" -- which were probably very similar anyway, at
> least mostly mutually inteligible -- sifted and leveled over time until
> we see written Old English.

.... with a bit of Norse added to it, and a large dose of Latin/French.
Almost no Celtic left, as far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong).

I always wind English native speakers up by saying that English is a
creole language. An old one, but creole nevertheless.  ;-)

> Mmmm, must stop off-topic ramblings! :)

As long as the on-topic/off-topic ratio  is pretty high, these ramblings
can be fun.

Gr,

Arjan H