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Genetically you are French if your ancestors are French. A word can be French and used in English as a common word. You're still saying a French word no matter

Genetically you are French if your ancestors are French. A word can be French and used in English as a common word. You're still saying a French word no matter how familiar it has become to you. Your claim seems to be that after an exact number of years of being used by English speakers a word is no longer French. Which doesn't hold up when you try to assign that exact number. Au revoir.

giraffe_lady 3y ago
Nah there isn't an "identity function" for words like that, nor can a single language "claim" a word. When a language fully assimilates a word with its origin in another language, it also becomes fully a word in the assimilating language as well. The connotation, denotation, pronunciation, and/or orthography can each change, or not, in either language or both, and it is a different word from that point on regardless. Your point about "genetically french" is also wrong in almost exactly the same way so it provides an illustrative comparison. There's no single french ethnicity, just people who are french and some observable trends. Someone is french who has french citizenship, a word is english when it is widely spoken by native english speakers. I also need to point out that this is not a matter of opinion. Linguistics is an established field and consensus is clear on this. You are confidently asserting things that are well outside the mainstream of the science.
- tchaffee 3y ago
  No language is claiming the word. English uses German words. When my Austrian friend spoke German to his son this morning I understood the word kindergarten because I have a small German vocabulary like all English speakers do. Kindergarten is simply a German word that English speakers understand. There are absolutely genetic groupings of people. Any geneticist will tell you so. You can learn more here. https://medium.com/nautilus-magazine/what-both-the-left-and-right-get-wrong-about-race-732beb766f1c https://medium.com/nautilus-magazine/what-both-the-left-and-... Adiós amigo.

giraffe_lady 3y ago

Nah there isn't an "identity function" for words like that, nor can a single language "claim" a word. When a language fully assimilates a word with its origin in another language, it also becomes fully a word in the assimilating language as well. The connotation, denotation, pronunciation, and/or orthography can each change, or not, in either language or both, and it is a different word from that point on regardless. Your point about "genetically french" is also wrong in almost exactly the same way so it provides an illustrative comparison. There's no single french ethnicity, just people who are french and some observable trends. Someone is french who has french citizenship, a word is english when it is widely spoken by native english speakers. I also need to point out that this is not a matter of opinion. Linguistics is an established field and consensus is clear on this. You are confidently asserting things that are well outside the mainstream of the science.

tchaffee 3y ago
No language is claiming the word. English uses German words. When my Austrian friend spoke German to his son this morning I understood the word kindergarten because I have a small German vocabulary like all English speakers do. Kindergarten is simply a German word that English speakers understand. There are absolutely genetic groupings of people. Any geneticist will tell you so. You can learn more here. https://medium.com/nautilus-magazine/what-both-the-left-and-right-get-wrong-about-race-732beb766f1c https://medium.com/nautilus-magazine/what-both-the-left-and-... Adiós amigo.