What language does English SOUND most like? (friendly, dental)
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Frisian words still used in modern English are: Bread, Butter, Cheese, Yacht, Spoon and many others. Old English would have sounded most similar to Frisian and Old German. It also would have been close enough to have been mostly understood by Danes, Norwegians and Swedes as well in early times.
However modern English has borrowed so much from so many other languages it almost cant even be called English anymore.
They did some Dna studies of the modern English talking a sampling of DNA markers from men in villages spanning from the Norfolk coast across a swath of central England to the Welsh border. The dna markers didnt match Norway or Germany, rather Frisians from the NW coast of Holland across NW Germany into the western half of the Danish peninsula.
This would be consistent with Frisian and other coastal Germanic tribal war bands in the 6th and 7th centuries setting sail from their western coastlines in longboats where south westerly tradewinds would have brought them to landfall from the fens southward along the norfolk coast to the Thames estuary and Kent. Exactly as the venerable "Bead" had written years later in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles as the history of the English people and their origins
Correct! The study was released in 2002, when Central English samples were found to be identical to the Frisian samples.
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Frisan & Dutch certainly sound more like generic English.
On the other hand, luxembourgish does have the potential to, one day, be a contender. It's base is the Platt Deutsche dialect, Mosel-Frankish. Since the French invasion under Napoleon, it's had a heavy French influence, and most recently borrowing from English. It may resemble English after the Norman invasion.
English word "baby" and Gujarati word બેબ (bēba) [a baby] are related.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Radik Safin
English word "baby", Gujarati word બેબ (bēba) [a baby] and Vietnamese word "em bé" [a baby] are related.
Maybe it's just me, but I have this strange feeling that the English "baby" has the same Indo-European roots as the French "bébé", the Spanish "bebé" The Serbo-Croatian "беба" and especially the German and Dutch "baby".
I doubt the Vietnamese word for "baby" is genetically related to the same word in various Indo-European languages unless it is a loan word. There is such a thing as coincidence.
For example, Japanese "onna" and Italian "donna" sound very similar and both mean "woman," but they are not related at all.
Maybe it's just me, but I have this strange feeling that the English "baby" has the same Indo-European roots as the French "bébé", the Spanish "bebé" The Serbo-Croatian "беба" and especially the German and Dutch "baby".
In this list we must add the Welsh word "babi" [a baby, a moppet], the Irish word "babaí" [a baby, a small child], the Hungarian word "baba" [a baby] and the Thai word เบ๊บ (Béb) [a baby, a child].
Scots is English. It's sort of a "subspecies" of English. If anything, it's a mutually unintelligible English dialect. It's not a disparate language.
Quote:
Originally Posted by saibot
I doubt the Vietnamese word for "baby" is genetically related to the same word in various Indo-European languages unless it is a loan word. There is such a thing as coincidence.
You're right that it isn't genetically related and that it's a loanword. Because Turkish, a Turkic language, also uses "baby" (pronounced "bebe"). "Baby" seems rather universal - I know some Semitic speakers who use it often.
You're right that it isn't genetically related and that it's a loanword. Because Turkish, a Turkic language, also uses "baby" (pronounced "bebe"). "Baby" seems rather universal - I know some Semitic speakers who use it often.
The Turkish word "bebe" [a baby, an infant] also is related with the English word "baby".
The nations can borrow the name of instruments of labor, the name of food, scientific terms, but never borrow the name of their children and relatives.
Besides the Turks, Hungarians, Thais and Vietnamese the English word "baby" is akin to the Indonesians and Javanese.
Indonesian "bayi" - an infant. Javanese "bayi" - an infant.
I would say Danish. English sounds the most like it.
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