Amanda Platz<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you\u2019re an English language lover, you\u2019ve probably heard that\u00a0quote<\/a> \u201cEnglish doesn\u2019t borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s a meme somewhere. Anyways, unlike French or something, which has a very neat and organized chronology, and the word all at least look<\/em> French, English\u2026 Well, English is a bit weird. And when I say, \u2018a bit,\u2019 I mean, a lot weird. We have words like martyr<\/em>, which is of French origin, or skirt<\/em> which is Scandinavian, or accuse<\/em> which is Old English. Aficionado<\/a> is a Spanish word, and Tsunami is Japanese. Where does English get all these different words? And why is it not normal like other languages?<\/p>\n\n\n\n English is a language thief. He\u2019s the Robin Hood of the languages. He steals from rich languages, like French, Latin, or Spanish, and uses their words in his own language, with his own added flare. But where did English encounter these other languages? According to Simon Winchester<\/a>, <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe English language\u2014so vast, so sprawling, so wonderfully unwieldy, so subtle, and now in its never-ending fullness so undeniably magnificent\u2014is in its essence the language of invasion.\u201d <\/p>(<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The English language was formed and shaped into what it is because England was invaded. He says that \u201cof the gigantic amassment of words that make up the stock of the English language\u2026the huge majority were conceived or otherwise made whole through the good offices of outsiders, visitors, or invaders.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first language in England, the land of English, was the language of the Celts. Celtic people\u2019s lived and loved and breathed and grew in England. They named the places. \u00a0English really liked their place names, so when they left, English took them and left the rest. Celtic was also a poor language, so English only really took what it could get from Celtic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second language to invade the land of English was the language of the Romans: Latin. Latin came with the Roman invasion, and it was a rich language. English stole a lot of words, grammatical structuring, and linguistic charm from Latin. Though we may not think of English as a Latin language (it\u2019s not one of the five romance languages, and technically English is a Germanic language. But English most certainly went through Latin\u2019s pockets and found some pretty awesome words<\/a>, like novel, picture, <\/em>and language.<\/em> These words have Latin roots nova<\/em> meaning \u2018new\u2019, pictura<\/em> meaning \u2018picture,\u2019 and lingua<\/em> meaning \u2018language.\u2019 English really didn\u2019t do too much to make most of these words their own. English isn\u2019t really hiding the fact that it stole these words. In fact, English is rather proud of his thievery. Thankfully, another language came in, so English didn\u2019t become Latinized like other European languages (lookin\u2019 at you, French).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![quote<\/a> \u201cEnglish doesn\u2019t borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s a meme somewhere. Anyways, unlike French or something, which has a very neat and organized chronology, and the word all at least look<\/em> French, English\u2026 Well, English is a bit weird. And when I say, \u2018a bit,\u2019 I mean, a lot weird. We have words like martyr<\/em>, which is of French origin, or skirt<\/em> which is Scandinavian, or accuse<\/em> which is Old English. Aficionado<\/a> is a Spanish word, and Tsunami is Japanese. Where does English get all these different words? And why is it not normal like other languages?<\/p>\n\n\n\nEnglish is a language thief. He\u2019s the Robin Hood of the languages. He steals from rich languages, like French, Latin, or Spanish, and uses their words in his own language, with his own added flare. But where did English encounter these other languages? According to Simon Winchester<\/a>, <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThe English language\u2014so vast, so sprawling, so wonderfully unwieldy, so subtle, and now in its never-ending fullness so undeniably magnificent\u2014is in its essence the language of invasion.\u201d <\/p>(<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nThe English language was formed and shaped into what it is because England was invaded. He says that \u201cof the gigantic amassment of words that make up the stock of the English language\u2026the huge majority were conceived or otherwise made whole through the good offices of outsiders, visitors, or invaders.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe first language in England, the land of English, was the language of the Celts. Celtic people\u2019s lived and loved and breathed and grew in England. They named the places. \u00a0English really liked their place names, so when they left, English took them and left the rest. Celtic was also a poor language, so English only really took what it could get from Celtic.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe second language to invade the land of English was the language of the Romans: Latin. Latin came with the Roman invasion, and it was a rich language. English stole a lot of words, grammatical structuring, and linguistic charm from Latin. Though we may not think of English as a Latin language (it\u2019s not one of the five romance languages, and technically English is a Germanic language. But English most certainly went through Latin\u2019s pockets and found some pretty awesome words<\/a>, like novel, picture, <\/em>and language.<\/em> These words have Latin roots nova<\/em> meaning \u2018new\u2019, pictura<\/em> meaning \u2018picture,\u2019 and lingua<\/em> meaning \u2018language.\u2019 English really didn\u2019t do too much to make most of these words their own. English isn\u2019t really hiding the fact that it stole these words. In fact, English is rather proud of his thievery. Thankfully, another language came in, so English didn\u2019t become Latinized like other European languages (lookin\u2019 at you, French).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Anglo-Saxons came after Rome. These people were Germanic peoples who came in, saw the Celts, saw the lack of Romans, and thought \u201chey, we\u2019ll settle down here. It\u2019ll be fun.\u201d So, they came. And English, already laden with words from the Celts and Latin, decided that it would add to it\u2019s store of words. This is where it grew into what is considered Old English. It was written in runes, or a 31-letter alphabet called futhorc.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nBy this point, according to Winchester, \u201cThe vocabulary of Old English\u2014with its total lexicon amounting to perhaps 50,000 words\u2014depended to some degree on borrowing from the available languages that were already being spoken in the British Isles.\u201d And the available languages now included Norse. The language of my people. The Vikings raided and pillaged, the Danes came and conquered, and according to Winchester, \u201cboth sets of northern adventurers introduced into English hundreds of their own words\u2014many that turned out to be of the most profound importance and yet, in terms of their exoticism and interest, among the most prosaic in the tongue.\u201d England may have been pillaged by the Vikings, but English did its own pillaging of the Scandinavian languages. English words such as skirt<\/em>, awkward<\/em>, reindeer<\/em>, them<\/em>, skin<\/em>, and rotten<\/em> all were pillaged from Scandinavian languages.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAnd then the French invaded. \u00a0Technically it was the Norman French, in the Norman Conquest of 1066. French conquered England and for 300 years French tried to squash English. But English would not be squashed. Instead, he stole from the French and used their vocabulary to spice up his own. Winchester says that \u201cthe English language, reviving itself from its mysterious dark age, was including and assimilating new French-originated words, speakers and writers using them as replacements for words that had vanished during the time when spoken and written French did dominate the nations language. Examples include such words as cardinal<\/em>, sugary<\/em>, blanket<\/em>, and so forth. The French influence on English certainly does not go unnoticed. French very nearly destroyed English, but English\u2019s resilience won out.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAnd then came Modern English. English continued to steal, but also began organizing, molding, and structuring his own words. \u201cIn the Renaissance it doubled again\u201d says Winchester \u201csuch that by the beginning of the seventeenth century there were reckoned to be at the very least 200,000 knowable words waiting to be used.\u201d English got these words from languages like Latin, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, but also India, Turkey, Arabia, Japan, and North America. This is the age in which Shakespeare wrote. Shakespeare was the first to put into use many of the words, such as the word accommodation<\/em> (seen in Othello). He also invented a number of words, or championed the cause of words) that never survived into the use of the language, such as besort, soilure, <\/em>and vastidity.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe English language continues to grow and expand, stealing pretty words from pretty languages. English as a language, much like the English hero Robin Hood, has a history of stealing from the rich to give to the poor, even if the poor be its own self. The English language has a rich and complex and beautiful history combining multiple different languages into one massively rich language. This language can use its words to make a person laugh or cry, weep and moan, rage and fume, and show people the complexity and beauty of life. English as a language has had a wonderful life, and continues to grow and expand and produce more beauty in its wake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amanda Platz If you\u2019re an English language lover, you\u2019ve probably heard that\u00a0quote \u201cEnglish doesn\u2019t borrow from other languages. 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