itv coverage

[Peat]

Saw a wonderful piece not so long ago about how English is actually quite weird and dumbed down in terms of grammar because it's undergone so many periods where the majority speakers of it weren't native English speakers. I mean, you look at old English, it's nothing like. You look at Frisian, our nearest Germanic neighbour, it's nothing like. Wonderful hodgepodge of stuff.

 

[ratsapprentice]

It's a very interesting language. I know that Norwegian is supposed to be very easy for native English speakers to learn.


Have you seen the video of Eddie Izzard attempting to buy a cow from a Frisian farmer whilst speaking old English?

 

[Lé Ddanno]

Absolutely. If you dig into it, it's either fascinating or utterly insane and context is everything.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

In particular think about how "ough" is pronounced.

Thought
Rough
Though
Through

Check this poem to see the madness of English: http://www.etni.org.il/farside/funpoem.htm

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

Yeh how about that ITV.

 

[profitius]

I read somewhere that the elites want it to be more like Latin so they started introducing more Latin words and made those the official words.

 

[ratsapprentice]

Well - the Elites were French, and spoke in French but wrote in Latin at the time you are referring to.

Hence why the names of meat and the animals they come from are different - the French speaking Elite would refer to the meat in French (Mutton, Pork, Venison, Beef, etc) and the English speaking populace would refer to the animal (swine, cow, deer, sheep etc.).

 

[profitius]

Well - the Elites were French, and spoke in French but wrote in Latin at the time you are referring to.

Hence why the names of meat and the animals they come from are different - the French speaking Elite would refer to the meat in French (Mutton, Pork, Venison, Beef, etc) and the English speaking populace would refer to the animal (swine, cow, deer, sheep etc.).

Indeed but even after that, from the 1500s onwards, Latin was considered the educated language so they kept borrowing latin/French words, especially for science.

 

[Every Time Ref]

It's just a mongrel, English. The idea that it is "descended from [INSERT LANGUAGE HERE]" is simplistic at best.

I believe it's technically classified as a Germanic language by linguists, for what it's worth, because of the roots of the grammar/syntax.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

It's just a mongrel, English. The idea that it is "descended from [INSERT LANGUAGE HERE]" is simplistic at best.

I believe it's technically classified as a Germanic language by linguists, for what it's worth, because of the roots of the grammar/syntax.

We are just unique. All other European languages share close similarities with at least one other European language. English is just all the languages crunched together with English popping out the top.

 

[Every Time Ref]

We are just unique. All other European languages share close similarities with at least one other European language. English is just all the languages crunched together with English popping out the top.

Basque is a weird one. It has no known linguistic relatives (Wikipedia tells me this makes it a "language isolate") - I remember my Spanish teacher at school telling me it had a surprising amount of similarities to Hungarian, but she talked a lot of crap so who knows

 

[ratsapprentice]

It's just a mongrel, English. The idea that it is "descended from [INSERT LANGUAGE HERE]" is simplistic at best.

I disagree - in fact I'd say that simply calling it "a mongrel" is the gross oversimplification.

Aside from vocabulary borrowed from Latin and French, it's broadly similar to modern Scandinavian languages, and to a lesser extent certain Germanic languages (Dutch, German etc.).

It's one of the main reasons why Scandinavians often sound like far more natural English speakers than anyone else - even if they have never lived abroad or spend much time at all conversing in English.
Because there is very little conflict in grammar and such a huge overlap in core vocabulary - holding basic day-to-day conversations takes very little conscious effort from them, as opposed to Romance language speakers, for example.

A good article: https://www.apollon.uio.no/english/articles/2012/4-english-scandinavian.html

 

[Saint4805]

It's one of the main reasons why Scandinavians often sound like far more natural English speakers than anyone else - even if they have never lived abroad or spend much time at all conversing in English.
Because there is very little conflict in grammar and such a huge overlap in core vocabulary - holding basic day-to-day conversations takes very little conscious effort from them, as opposed to Romance language speakers, for example.

A good article: https://www.apollon.uio.no/english/articles/2012/4-english-scandinavian.html

I disagree. It's because the education system in Scandinavian countries is of a much higher standard than their overseas counterparts. English is a core subject unlike in other countries and children are taught English from the age of five or six, even younger in many cases. Combine that with a large exposure to British/American TV shows and movies without any dubbing and you have a population most of whom are highly proficient in English. Dutch people are also generally highly proficient in English.

 

[ratsapprentice]

I disagree. It's because the education

It's one of the main reasons

Also - see the article posted.

 

[Saint4805]

Also - see the article posted.

Still disagree. It's not one of the main reasons at all. I outlined the two main reasons having lived in Sweden for many years and having contacts within the Swedish and Danish education systems.

 

[ratsapprentice]

You don't think that not having to learn a completely different syntax is significant at all?

I do think you might be slightly misinterpreting what I'm suggesting.
I'll clarify - If a Norwegian is speaking English and lapses into Norwegian grammar, the sentence is far more likely to still sound correct than if a French or Spanish speaker had done the same.

Do you see what I'm saying?

 

[Saint4805]

You don't think that not having to learn a completely different syntax is significant at all?

Not particularly. Without sounding disrespectful, even people with lower levels of intelligence in Sweden are proficient in English given the reasons I outlined.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Still disagree. It's not one of the main reasons at all. I outlined the two main reasons having lived in Sweden for many years and having contacts within the Swedish and Danish education systems.

Having thought about it for the first time in my life right now I'd have to agree with Rats. Studying French as part of my degree has introduced me to many French people who have a perfect command of English, and some of whom who have had since a young age. Yet it's quite clear that English is not their first language due to the accent and the way they pronounce certain sounds or in some cases small grammatical errors. Far more obvious than extended family I have from Holland or even German English speakers. The language and accent allows them to sound more natural speaking English, education would obviously help but surely it would affect the fluency rate in said nations far more than the accent and rhythm in which they speak English. But the structure and tone of the language will certainly play a part in how well someone adapts to another language, again through studying French it's obvious to me, I have to speak French with my best French accent, I'd be incomprehensible in my own accent and it doesn't come naturally one bit, friends studying German struggle less with the accent as far as I can tell.

 

[LiRFCMatt]

Yeah English is a Germanic language, but thanks to the Italians we got a whole heap of Latin in our language too.

No wonder we don't want them on our TV sets, only Germanophones from now on please.

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Having thought about it for the first time in my life right now I'd have to agree with Rats. Studying French as part of my degree has introduced me to many French people who have a perfect command of English, and some of whom who have had since a young age. Yet it's quite clear that English is not their first language due to the accent and the way they pronounce certain sounds or in some cases small grammatical errors. Far more obvious than extended family I have from Holland or even German English speakers. The language and accent allows them to sound more natural speaking English, education would obviously help but surely it would affect the fluency rate in said nations far more than the accent and rhythm in which they speak English. But the structure and tone of the language will certainly play a part in how well someone adapts to another language, again through studying French it's obvious to me, I have to speak French with my best French accent, I'd be incomprehensible in my own accent and it doesn't come naturally one bit, friends studying German struggle less with the accent as far as I can tell.

Mate I teach English in French schools and I can tell you that in general they are absolutely horrible at the language, almost as bad as the anglophones. The grammar at school level is god awful and the accent can be terrible. My accent has turned into a hodge-podge of all sorts of things, and people now mistake me for German (which might be better than English!?). However, I also teach German students English and my lord, I don't know what the education system is like over there but these 16 year olds come over practically fluent, much better than they are at French which probably highlights the differences between the Germanic and Romantic languages.

Tell you what I found weird, when studying Spanish I noticed that Romanians are all super fluent in Spanish and the languages are very similar. That struck me as odd.

BBC>ITV

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Yeah English is a Germanic language, but thanks to the Italians we got a whole heap of Latin in our language too.

No wonder we don't want them on our TV sets, only Germanophones from now on please.

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Mate I teach English in French schools and I can tell you that in general they are absolutely horrible at the language, almost as bad as the anglophones. The grammar at school level is god awful and the accent can be terrible. My accent has turned into a hodge-podge of all sorts of things, and people now mistake me for German (which might be better than English!?). However, I also teach German students English and my lord, I don't know what the education system is like over there but these 16 year olds come over practically fluent, much better than they are at French which probably highlights the differences between the Germanic and Romantic languages.

Tell you what I found weird, when studying Spanish I noticed that Romanians are all super fluent in Spanish and the languages are very similar. That struck me as odd.

BBC>ITV

I can imagine! 7 years at the language and I'm still anything but fluent! Hopefully a year studying in Toulouse next year will help, no clue why I chose there of all places!