Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I always found it interesting that english is considered germanic even though around 27% of it is french and 25% of it is latin in origin, in other the majority of english is actually latin in origin.
What ChrisC said. Also, those vocabulary figures are for total usable words in the English language. This doesn't reflect the words most often used in daily speech. I can tell you about my family, my house, and the land around me using minimal amounts of latin 'loan-words'.
In fact, here is all the text in this post, again, with the the Latin words in bold. Far fewer than the 53% of Latin words. Furthermore, I will put possible 'true English' substitutes in brackets after the bolded loan-words.
~~~~
What ChrisC said. Also, those vocabulary [word] figures [tallies]are for all the usable[there to draw upon] words in the English language[speech]. This doesn't reflect[show] the words most often used in daily speech. I can tell you about my family[kin], my house, and the land around me using minimal[small/lesser] amounts[tallies] of Latin 'loan-words'.
In fact[in truth/forsooth], here is all the text[writing] in this post[these lines], again, with the the Latin words in bold. Far fewer than the 53%[of a hundred] of Latin words. Furthermore, I will put possible[likely?] 'true English' substitutes[stand-ins] in brackets after the bolded loan-words.
I'm from austria and I can't understand what's so beautiful about German..
but we have some really funny dialects in Austria, Bavaria and the eastern part of Germnany
and of course in Switzerland the famous "Switzerdutch" (the austrian word for the dialect in Switzerland)
Location: God's Gift to Mankind for flying anything
5,921 posts, read 13,855,132 times
Reputation: 5229
Quote:
Originally Posted by effie briest
i love the netherlands, their people and their language a lot, although the language (similar to schwyzerdütsch) can strike you like a throat disease ...
kindly forgive me.
It IS a throat disease .....
BTW, instead of calling it *Germanic*,
would *Teutonic* be better ?
Germanic makes it look it only came from what Germany is now,
while Teutonic seems to include a far larger area ?
Effie, I will forgive you very kindly ..
Bitte bitte ....
So ein Halskrankheit .... Mensch .....
it´s the richest language you can imagine!
A master of arabic can use it in varioos ways and play with it in a formidable way!
It´s very logic and exact, so it´s suitable for sciences - it was the common language in the ancient muslim world, european scientists got many greek, latin, persian, arabic and even indian and chinese knowledge by translating the arabic literature.
You can find for everything a well fitting expression, even for new inventions.
it´s very rich in symbols speech, various expressions, stylistic device, rhime and onomatopoetic. So it´s suitable perfectly for poetic and literature
But nowadays even most arabs can´t handle the high speech of their language like scholars, scientists and poets in the past.
But most arabs love their language and are proud of it until now!
I'm surprised so many are voting for English. Different strokes, I guess... but to me, English is about the most unappealing sounding language of any I've heard, Germanic or not. I could possibly make an exception for Hiberno-English, but other that that, it's just plain ugly.
it´s the richest language you can imagine!
A master of arabic can use it in varioos ways and play with it in a formidable way!
It´s very logic and exact, so it´s suitable for sciences - it was the common language in the ancient muslim world, european scientists got many greek, latin, persian, arabic and even indian and chinese knowledge by translating the arabic literature.
You can find for everything a well fitting expression, even for new inventions.
it´s very rich in symbols speech, various expressions, stylistic device, rhime and onomatopoetic. So it´s suitable perfectly for poetic and literature
But nowadays even most arabs can´t handle the high speech of their language like scholars, scientists and poets in the past.
But most arabs love their language and are proud of it until now!
I'm surprised so many are voting for English. Different strokes, I guess... but to me, English is about the most unappealing sounding language of any I've heard, Germanic or not. I could possibly make an exception for Hiberno-English, but other that that, it's just plain ugly.
It´s obviously because most people on here are from the US and therefore vote for their own language..
begging to disagree. english may not be the most melodic sound to the ear, but it certainly has its intricacies and is a most sophisticated language. maybe only to foreigners, who knows?
begging to disagree. english may not be the most melodic sound to the ear, but it certainly has its intricacies and is a most sophisticated language. maybe only to foreigners, who knows?
nah, its been proven in many threads that the americans of this board tend to only vote in favour of themselves.
like this one thread, where someone asked which country would be the "leading country" after the US.. And everyone voted Canada
i am a foreigner btw, and while i like the english language, i can think of several that i like the sound of more, like german.
nah, its been proven in many threads that the americans of this board tend to only vote in favour of themselves.
like this one thread, where someone asked which country would be the "leading country" after the US.. And everyone voted Canada
i am a foreigner btw, and while i like the english language, i can think of several that i like the sound of more, like german.
It really depends on the accent. There are some BEAUTIFUL English accents to be found. Specifically in the American South.
And English is the most descriptive language in the world. It has more adjectives than any other language.
But it is my language, so I think it's boring. And the way we speak it in my region isn't very pretty.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I could possibly make an exception for Hiberno-English, but other that that, it's just plain ugly.
