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Post by Pete on Jun 11, 2008 20:20:29 GMT
Some recent posts have alluded to the evolution of the English language from Latin, either directly or via other European languages, like Norman French, Saxon and so on. I also think I am right in saying that all of these are Indo-European languages?
The languages I have been taught - French, Spanish, Hebrew - have genders for all or most nouns, masculine and feminine and sometimes neuter. Why have these disappeared from English when they have been retained in the 'source' languages?
Similarly, Latin, Russian and other languages have cases - nominative, accusative, dative, etc. Why doesn't English? Or does it and I have just never seen it?
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Post by goofy on Jun 11, 2008 20:32:03 GMT
English lost most inflections in the Middle English period. This page has a good overview. It was written by a professor of mine, back in the day. English did not evolve from Latin; it's a Germanic language, but it does have a large number of words borrowed from Latin and various forms of French. |
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Post by Sue M-V on Jun 11, 2008 21:21:10 GMT
Some recent posts have alluded to the evolution of the English language from Latin Goofy beat me to it! I can't think where you got the impression, Pete, that English evolved from Latin! I can't imagine any of us have suggested it. One of the problems with English is that, being a Germanic language, it has had various Latin-type ideas foisted onto it by misguided "experts" in days of yore - possibly misled by the approximately 70% of the vocabulary that is Latin-based - or, more probably, because Latin was given a higher status than Germanic languages. As Goofy says, we did have all the cases that a respectable language was equipped with once upon a time, but they have all been nicely polished off over the years. Sue |
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Post by Pete on Jun 11, 2008 22:01:57 GMT
I know English is a Germanic language but weren't the Germanic languages derived originally from Latin? That was the basis of refering to the derivation of English from Lation "either directly or via other European languages". Either way, I clearly need to re-read my David Crystal!  As an aside, Bill Bryson's book on the English language is a good read, too. |
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Post by goofy on Jun 11, 2008 22:04:54 GMT
No, the Germanic languages are derived from Proto-Germanic, which is derived from Proto-Indo-European. You could look at Proto-Germanic and Latin as sisters.
If you mean "The Mother Tongue", it's an enjoyable book, but I couldn't get past all the errors.
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Post by Pete on Jun 11, 2008 22:08:03 GMT
No, the Germanic languages are derived from Proto-Germanic, which is derived from Proto-Indo-European. You could look at Proto-Germanic and Latin as sisters. If you mean "The Mother Tongue", it's an enjoyable book, but I couldn't get past all the errors. I guess the problem is that I don't know enough about the subject to recognise the errors. It's clear from your posts that you are such an expert, and I am enjoying reading your contributions. |
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Post by Verbivore on Jun 12, 2008 1:01:53 GMT
[...] As an aside, Bill Bryson's book on the English language is a good read, too. Bryson's books are eminently readable - for entertainment - but I agree with Goofy that they are less than accurate on the facts. |
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Post by Barry on Jun 12, 2008 9:52:45 GMT
Pete,
If you want a relatively accessible book that gives you the chronology and development of the language(s), David Crystal's The Stories of English is probably more insightful than the Bryson book (which is fun, but, as goofy says, not as well researched as it might be).
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Post by Barry on Jun 12, 2008 9:55:38 GMT
Ooops. Just read another thread and realised you'd read Crystal's book already ... Sorry |
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Post by Pete on Jun 12, 2008 17:55:03 GMT
Ooops. Just read another thread and realised you'd read Crystal's book already ... Sorry No problem, Barry. Thanks for taking an interest. |
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