Old French
Posted in Garden Antiques on 12/23/2010 03:11 am by adminHow do you think English would be today, if Old English was never changed by the French?
When changed it added new words such as Old French = stomach, Old English = gut, Old French = mucus, Old English = snot. Do you think another language would have influenced or it would have stayed the same as it was? Also adding of other language such as Latin and Greek.
English of course has up to 40% of its vocabulary from French and also from Latin. It is a Germanic language though and if you have a look at Old English, you can see just how much English has changed over the last millenium. Of course you have Greek and not to mention the fact English is an extremely flexible language, as in it can absorb words from other languages.
Take for example the word 'oversee'.
It could also be 'overlook' in native English. However, via French there is another word namely 'supervise' and not to mention 'survey'. These ultimately derive from Latin. Over, super and sur mean above respectively and see, look, vise, "vey" relate to sight or vision. Also note how English has given a new meaning for survey, though it still can mean oversee.
My guess that if the Normans hadn't invaded, English wouldn't be the internationally reknowned language as it is known now. It'd be like a German-Scandinavian mix.
In the following sentence alone, there are words from many language sources.
- the article 'the' has Germanic origins
- typhoon comes from Cantonese 'dai foong' (big wind)
- grand, caused, people, resulted come from French and I'm sure ill is scandinavian. Well you get my point.
"The grand typhoon caused many people to fall ill due to the floods which resulted."