lingusitic history of English [was: Ruby Impressions]

[Steven Majewski]

I caught the tail end of a talk by a linguist on the radio (NPR):
he was explaining how isolated languages are the ones with extremely
subtle and complicated grammars -- things like 15 or 16 genders for
example. Languages in isolation tend toward complication and the
languages of primitive tribes are anything but primitive. It is
prolonged contact with other language speakers that tends to simplify
a language. Think of pidgin-English for an example of what happens.
English started out as pidgin-German, and got even more diluted and
simplified after the Norman invasion. ( The grammar shrank while the
vocabulary grew. )

-- Steve Majewski

On Fri, 11 Jan 2002 James_Althoff at i2.com wrote:
>
> Robin Becker wrote:
> >I believe linguistic history of English is that it's a mix of Anglo-
> >Saxon and Norman French translated through the great vowel shift into
> >what we currently call Modern English. Clearly there are a lot of other
> >lumps in the mix but I think the closest modern match is Ost Frisian
> >which is closely related to German.
>
> Not forgetting, of course, the contribution of Old Norse from those living
> in the Danelaw -- especially the resultant simplification of grammar due to
> the intermingling of Scandinavians with Anglo-Saxons living across the
> Danelaw boundary.