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When I first learned about the history of English as an adolescent, I used to say that English was "a mixture of French and German". I think I was thinking that
by schoen 6y ago
When I first learned about the history of English as an adolescent, I used to say that English was "a mixture of French and German". I think I was thinking that Germanic languages had not diverged significantly from each other at the time of the Norman Conquest and that French and German were also conservative enough that the modern languages were recognizably similar to or even mutually intelligible with their ancestors from a thousand years ago.
These intuitions that I held about language change are not right, and they did allow me to confusedly use "Germanic" and "German" pretty much interchangeably. (After learning more linguistics and modern Germanic and Romance languages, I can now return to my old intuition and see it as a useful metaphor.)
I think you and other people in this thread are right to actively try to correct this misconception, because it's a real misconception that people, including me, have held literally instead of metaphorically.
- _emacsomancer_ 6y agoIt's an unfortunate accident that English uses 'German' for the language and 'Germanic' for the language family which easily leads to this sort of confusion. [Even ca. 700-1000 A.D., Old English and the ancestors of modern German (modern 'Hoch Deutsch') were pretty different, if obviously related, e.g.: Old English: ============ Fæder ūre, ðū ðē eart on heofonum, Sī ðīn nama gehālgod. Tō becume ðīn rice. Gewurde ðīn willa On eorþan swā swā on heofonum. Urne gedæghwamlīcan hlāf syle ūs tōdæg. And forgyf ūs ūre gyltas, Swā swā wē forgyfaþ ūrum gyltendum. And ne gelæd ðū ūs on costnunge, ac alȳs ūs of yfele. * * * * Old High German (Bavarian): =========================== Fater unser, du pist in himilum. Kauuihit si namo din. Piqhueme rihhi din, Uuesa din uuillo, sama so in himile est, sama in erdu. Pilipi unsraz emizzigaz kip uns eogauuanna. Enti flaz uns unsro sculdi, sama so uuir flazzames unsrem scolom. Enti ni princ unsih in chorunka. Uzzan kaneri unsih fona allem sunton.
- schoen 6y agoThat is also useful because that is further apart than I would have expected. :-) Is there a continental European Germanic language that was closer to English at that time? An ancestor of modern Frisian or something?
- _emacsomancer_ 6y agoOld Saxon will be the closest thing to Frisian for the same time period, and it does look closer to the Old English: Fadar usa firiho barno, thu bist an them hohon himila rikea, geuuihid si thin namo uuordo gehuuilico, Cuma thin craftag riki. UUerða thin uuilleo oƀar thesa werold alla, so sama an erðo, so thar uppa ist an them hohon himilo rikea. Gef us dag gehuuilikes rad, drohtin the godo, thina helaga helpa, endi alat us, heƀenes uuard, managoro mensculdio, al so uue oðrum mannum doan. Ne lat us farledean leða uuihti so forð an iro uuileon, so uui uuirðige sind, ac help us uuiðar allun uƀilon dadiun. [these are all of course translations from Latin, so there are also differences in translator choices as well.]
- schoen 6y agoYeah, also the problem of the translation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiousios https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiousios (or the vernacular translation of Latin translations of that word)... Thanks for the Old Saxon example. Very interesting!