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English is not directly descended from Latin, nor are English people directly descended from ancient Romans. (You don't need a formal study to prove this -- jus
by School-Cotton 2y ago
English is not directly descended from Latin, nor are English people directly descended from ancient Romans. (You don't need a formal study to prove this -- just use your eyes. The typical English person and the typical Italian don't look the same.)
There are also lots of sounds in English that don't exist in Latin; for example, most of the vowels (English has roughly 15-20 vowel sounds; Latin has 5 or 6).
- kbolino 2y agoTwo modern groups of people looking different does not necessarily prove a lack of common ancestry. The people of the past in a certain place did not necessarily look like the people of the present in that same place. In particular, the reason why modern English are not really descended from ancient Romans is because the people who were (at least partially; they were known as Romano-British) got displaced by larger numbers of other people, principally Norse and Germanic peoples from the continent (especially Anglo-Saxons and Normans). Moreover, the history of Italy is quite different in the specifics but actually has some similarities in the broad strokes. Germanic peoples from the north, Norse peoples from the sea, and (more uniquely) North African peoples from the south, have all through migration, displacement, and interrelations shaped the ancestry of modern Italians.
- bluGill 2y agoEnglish is directly descended from German AND Latin. There is more German, but Latin (via French) has had enough influence that you can argue that English is also descended from Latin.
- School-Cotton 2y agoYou mean proto-Germanic (from which German also descends), not German. Saying English descends from German is sort of like saying French descends from Italian. As for the main point: no serious historical linguist argues that English is descended from Latin. Yes, English superficially has lots of Latin vocabulary, but the phonology, syntax, basic words, etc. are still thoroughly Germanic. Phonology being particularly relevant since this thread is about how well an alphabet matches a language's sound inventory.
- throaway512 2y agoLinguistically English works nothing like Latin
- throaway512 2y agoThe English alphabet uses the Latin script, not that the language itself is based on Latin.
- School-Cotton 2y agoThat's exactly what I'm saying.
- throaway512 2y agoThe comment you responded to was just saying that the alphabet was inherited from Rome, not the language