I Blame Communism
Banned
In reality, English is far more like German than any other language (including French.)
That's niver the suith o it. An thare's Frisian as wiel.
In reality, English is far more like German than any other language (including French.)
Britain was invaded. The term England is meaningless before the Anglo-Saxons
Britain was not invaded; Prydain was invaded the correct name is Prydain the garble mouthed invaders mangled it to Britain.
The foul Sassenach!
The foul Sassenach!
There is population genetic evidence based on Y-chromosomal sequences, that the Anglo-Saxon-Jutish invaders by whatever means (jus primae noctis, enslavement, simply killing off the local males?) prevented the local male britonic population from procreating. The Y-chromosomes of tested males in England are closely related to those of tested males in Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Denmark and Frisia while quite different from those of males tested in Wales, Scotland and Ireland. So it was not a simple invasion, it was a complete takeover of what later became known as Anglecynn and much later England.
What I find interesting is, that the resulting country was named after the Angles, not the Saxons. While there were Essex, Sussex and Wessex clearly derived from the term Saxon only East Anglia was named after the Angles and since it was Alfred of Wessex who unified the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms it would have made more sense to name the unified country Saexeland, not Angleland, especially since large parts of the Anglish settlement zone were still occupied by the Danes at that time.
There is population genetic evidence based on Y-chromosomal sequences, that the Anglo-Saxon-Jutish invaders by whatever means (jus primae noctis, enslavement, simply killing off the local males?) prevented the local male britonic population from procreating. The Y-chromosomes of tested males in England are closely related to those of tested males in Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Denmark and Frisia while quite different from those of males tested in Wales, Scotland and Ireland. So it was not a simple invasion, it was a complete takeover of what later became known as Anglecynn and much later England.
Britain was invaded. The term England is meaningless before the Anglo-Saxons
Even if this is an accurate description of the status of Y-DNA in England, this doesn't mean the British male population was slaughtered and replaced. Over a period of generations, for example, giving men of Anglo-Saxon male descent a 10% higher chance of having surviving male children would result in the same DNA spread.
What I find interesting is, that the resulting country was named after the Angles, not the Saxons. While there were Essex, Sussex and Wessex clearly derived from the term Saxon only East Anglia was named after the Angles and since it was Alfred of Wessex who unified the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms it would have made more sense to name the unified country Saexeland, not Angleland, especially since large parts of the Anglish settlement zone were still occupied by the Danes at that time.
The theory want that English started as a germanic *créole* language, so a mix of both ANglo-Saxon and Normand French so the classes speak and understand each others... More or less what you meaned.
The invaders were just murdering thieving barbarians, the only culture they had was growing between their toes.
The problem there is that England is not Britain and the Anglo-Saxons never made very big inroads towards conquering Scotland so we say "England" out of convenience.
I am not disputing it because I believe that it is the proper classification but this might be of interest:
Although Romance and Latin have contributed more to English, remember those are often the bigger words (Honorificabilitudinitatibus - From Latin).
The invaders were just murdering thieving barbarians, the only culture they had was growing between their toes.
More importantly, a lot of French words are themselves of Frankish (and thus Germanic) origin. Frankish was from a different branch of the Western-Germanic languages than Old English (and for that matter Saxon and Frisian), though.Another thing worth bearing in mind is that, while French does make up a disproportionally large amount of English vocabulary, a lot of those words are themselves Germanic in origin! Remember, it was the Normans who overtook and ruled England...as in "Northmen", since Normandy was settled by Vikings (Norman=Northman). A not insignificant amount of those French words that entered our word-hoard were originally from Old Norse, then transliterated into Norman French over a few centuries. So technically, one could make the argument that there should be a margin of error between French and Germanic vocabulary by about 2-3%
"Central Germanic"? Sure, it's had a large influx of Northern Germanic vocabulary (every language in the region had, though English more than others for the reasons you stated), but that doesn't change the language's Ingvaeonic core.The Anglo-Saxon and later English languages was never under the Romans, thus their structure was never affected. English is more a Scandinavian language then Central Germanic, because of the Viking Invasion and the establishment of the Personal Union between England, Denmark and Norway that lasted a while.