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I think an appealing thing about English is the ridiculous vocabulary. When it doesn’t have a word, it just steals one from another language. We have a French-b
by salmo 4y ago
I think an appealing thing about English is the ridiculous vocabulary. When it doesn’t have a word, it just steals one from another language. We have a French-based word that’s a “fancy” way to say an English-based synonym from the court vs common language situation with the Normans. Then borrowed liberally from Greek and Latin during the enlightenment, and every other language when colonialism kicked in (including a lot of botched Spanish). That constant borrowing is partly why our spelling is insane.
Oh and add to the insanity that we’ll borrow the same French word twice, frozen in each time.
It’s fascinating to see the language evolve through eg India. It’s a secondary language that fills a gap to provide a commonly understood language in a region with massive linguistic diversity. But then it’s developed it’s own regionalisms that are bleeding back into regions where it is the primary language.
It’s kind of like shell scripting to me. It started simple, got random useful things tacked on over time. You can’t formally define it, but it’s pragmatically powerful. And there aren’t real rules despite people trying so hard over the years, just conventions that shift and change. And often the “rule makers” just make things more complicated in the end with only some of it sticking.
I highly recommend the English History Podcast for anyone interested.
- bee_rider 4y agoThere's also the budding euro-English, which is kinda funny because it is to some extent the revenge of all the words we've stolen from other European languages and then slowly turned into false-friends. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_English#Vocabulary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_English#Vocabulary Anyway as an American I'm always in favor of just giving our language away to anyone to do whatever they want with it, really just go nuts, especially -- throw some z's in there, they really add some pizzazz to the language. (Just ignore the British, they will try to get you to change them back to s's... but you can see what that does to the pizzazz!).
- salmo 4y agoTotally agree. I love that it’s the gumbo of languages. Throw whatever you want in there. I’m down. And as an American I reject the British pronunciation of “herb” and “lieutenant.”
- rhaway84773 4y agoEvery language steals words from other languages. Heck, eastern Asian languages have stolen an entire script from English (pinyin). There’s nothing unique about English in this regard.
- salmo 4y agoThe stealing isn’t unique for sure. But most of the vocabulary in our language is borrowed words. Mostly just the “sight words” kids learn in early school is what remains of Old English. And many English words are the rougher equivalent of a borrowed, nicer words. Most languages were pretty calcified by Old or Middle English, and English doesn’t seem to be letting up. But no language is static. But with tech and mass communication, English is squeezing into many languages. Pinyin is kind of weird. It’s not borrowing concepts, but lending itself to translation in and out. Based off prior western attempts and observation of Japanese success. Typesetting is more practical, and then computers really push it… the latter I feel awkward about. 1/2 is the typesetting benefit, 1/2 is eurocentrism. I dunno. Maybe I’m overthinking. The vocabulary is more interesting to me because it’s importing ideas or nuances around ideas. It’s primarily nouns, though. Learning other languages is great to see the world differently. Even in just French, which is fairly close: eg faire doesn’t have a real English equivalent, but makes total sense. It’s like how I learn programming languages I’ll never use for work, just to see things from their perspective. I don’t know enough about Asian languages. Working on fleshing out my history knowledge now from Asian perspectives vs what I got in school. Maybe one day I’ll be brave enough to address a language.