xkcd 1 (As Far As I Can Tell): Wow, That's a Really Cool Baby!

[Peelee]

But...like, a third of English is stolen from German to begin with!

Well, i would certainly hope so, since English is a Germanic language.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I guess Everieb Oddy thought the joke was confusing.

[Kato]

But...like, a third of English is stolen from German to begin with!

Well, kind of. You still a lot of similar words but then many of those are older, I think.
But while sure, we could come up with our own new words it is much easier to borrow from English, especially since it makes learning English easier if you already know terms for most modern stuff.

[Complex Dragon]

Oh, man, you wouldn't believe what letters we can make silent.

"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of consonants cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened."

[-D-]

But...like, a third of English is stolen from German to begin with!

So? I'm pretty sure German just stole its words, from an even older language like Latin or some other language.

It's not like they are getting thinned out due to borrowing.

[Grinner]

I wonder what would show up on a canine genetic test if you sent in a human sample...?

So? I'm pretty sure German just stole its words, from an even older language like Latin or some other language.

I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't bet on that. German and Latin are of distinct families. It's possible that they share a common ancestor, but they certainly don't appear to bear much similarity.

I think English is a member of the Germanic languages, but it seems like it uses only Germanic grammar and takes its vocabulary mostly from Latin.

[factotum]

I think English is a member of the Germanic languages, but it seems like it uses only Germanic grammar and takes its vocabulary mostly from Latin.

It takes bits from everywhere. The basis is the Celtic dialects spoken by the British tribes during the Roman occupation, with a bunch of Latin added on top. Then we have the influx of proto-German from the Anglo-Saxon invasion of the 5th century, Danish influences from the Vikings in the 9th, and mediaeval French from the Norman invasion in 1066, before we even start talking about the various words borrowed from other languages later on. The Norman Invasion, in particular, is why English is one of the few languages in the world where the word for the meat of an animal is different from the name of the animal itself--the peasants keeping the animals used their old names for them, whereas their Norman overlords would be eating the meat and calling it by their names.

[Kato]

I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't bet on that. German and Latin are of distinct families. It's possible that they share a common ancestor, but they certainly don't appear to bear much similarity.

I think English is a member of the Germanic languages, but it seems like it uses only Germanic grammar and takes its vocabulary mostly from Latin.

Well... kind of. German and latin share many similarities, e.g. we do have four of its five cases still. We decline and conjugate following similar-ish rules. We do have quite a few words taken from Latin but we also have many others, either taken from elswhere or we... I guess came up with ourselves.

From my very limited knowledge I think English is one of the languages that really is prominently made by mixing many others. (Obviously, most modern languages especially major European ones are influenced by others because of years of contact and interaction. But in English it's more obvious) Many, many, many words can be easily derived from French or Latin or German (or others) words with similar meaning, though at times with German and French it could be the other way round which came first... better ask a linguist about that.

[Eldan]

I wonder what would show up on a canine genetic test if you sent in a human sample...?

I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't bet on that. German and Latin are of distinct families. It's possible that they share a common ancestor, but they certainly don't appear to bear much similarity.

I think English is a member of the Germanic languages, but it seems like it uses only Germanic grammar and takes its vocabulary mostly from Latin.

Actually, you got a lot of words from German. Like, let's take your post, bold for words I'm sure are Germanic:

I wonder what would show up on a canine genetic test if you sent in a human sample...?

I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't bet on that. German and Latin are of distinct families. It's possible that they share a common ancestor, but they certainly don't appear to bear much similarity.

I think English is a member of the Germanic languages, but it seems like it uses only Germanic grammar and takes its vocabulary mostly from Latin.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I think English is one of the languages that really is prominently made by mixing many others. (Obviously, most modern languages especially major European ones are influenced by others because of years of contact and interaction. But in English it's more obvious)

Sort of, but I wouldn't go as far as saying it is special in that way. In general, the more a country has been invaded or has invaded other cultures, the more likely it is to have a variety of sources. For example, Spain is also is like that, since it has been invaded by the romans (caballo - horse), the germans (yelmo - helmet), the muslims (alfombra - carpet), the french (who reintroduced latin-based romance languages, but I don't have a good example handy), then went around the world invading others (chocolate).

India, too, has a similarly exciting history, but so far they have kept most of their languages separate: most of my Indian friends can speak their local language (but not read it or write it), one of the "dominant" languages (usually Hindi or Telugu), can read Sanskrit "a bit" and finally English. I suppose it technically doesn't count as mix because they still think of them as separate, but that's splitting hairs - they actually mix them all together as needed. I expect than in a couple hundred year's time, that will all merge into a unified "Indian" language.

Grey Wolf

[SlyGuyMcFly]

But...like, a third of English is stolen from German to begin with!

And now they're stealing it back!

I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't bet on that. German and Latin are of distinct families. It's possible that they share a common ancestor, but they certainly don't appear to bear much similarity.

PIE. Proto-Indo-European. Common ancestor of (almost) all European Languages among many others.

I think English is a member of the Germanic languages, but it seems like it uses only Germanic grammar and takes its vocabulary mostly from Latin.

As others have said, English is very much a mongrel language. It's considered Germanic by experts on account of it's Germanic grammar but it's lexicon is something like two-thirds latin-based, either directly or via the Norman/French connection. Sauce.

Actually, you got a lot of words from German. Like, let's take your post, bold for words I'm sure are Germanic:

Nitpick: Use comes from Latin. Vulgar Latin usare turned into usar in Spanish and user in French. I guess the Brits lopped off the r on user because nobody was... using it.

Sort of, but I wouldn't go as far as saying it is special in that way. In general, the more a country has been invaded or has invaded other cultures, the more likely it is to have a variety of sources. For example, Spain is also is like that, since it has been invaded by the romans (caballo - horse), the germans (yelmo - helmet), the muslims (alfombra - carpet), the french (who reintroduced latin-based romance languages, but I don't have a good example handy), then went around the world invading others (chocolate).

(popurrí - potpourri) for the French example. English is still an odd case in just how much it has taken from other languages, though. Spanish, despite the Iberian Peninsula's colourful history, is roughly 70% Latin and owes only 5% or so to each it's Goth conquerors and it's Muslim ones. Part of that Latin came via Portuguese, Italian and French, but it's still mostly it's own sort of mutant Latin

[halfeye]

I'm remembering, but not finding, someone in this forum, probably but not necessarily in this thread, saying that the german for saucer was under-cup (or rather the german equivalents), so does that mean that in German UFOs are flying under-cups ? Because that would be hilarious, and it would be pretty funny if flying saucer in german meant UFO, but not flying under-cup. No offence intended to the german language, just a funny thing that maybe arose in translation.

[Eldan]

Absolutely, yes. It is undercup. The term "Fliegende Untertasse", flying Under-cup does exist, but it has pretty much phased out in favour of UFO. Which just so happens to also mean Unbekanntes Flug-Objekt, so it works for German, too.

[BlueHerring]

India, too, has a similarly exciting history, but so far they have kept most of their languages separate: most of my Indian friends can speak their local language (but not read it or write it), one of the "dominant" languages (usually Hindi or Telugu), can read Sanskrit "a bit" and finally English. I suppose it technically doesn't count as mix because they still think of them as separate, but that's splitting hairs - they actually mix them all together as needed. I expect than in a couple hundred year's time, that will all merge into a unified "Indian" language.

Grey Wolf

That's kind of unlikely to happen. North and South Indian languages actually have two completely separate roots. The South Indian languages are Dravidian in origin, while the North Indian ones are Indo-European. Given that the languages have stayed largely separate for quite a long time, I doubt that they'd combine anytime soon. What's more likely to happen is that the smaller languages will die off over time, and more people will adopt using the same language (probably Hindi).

Interestingly enough, the South Indian languages are close enough to each other that, with proper fluency in one, you could understand others*. It's possible for a merged language to happen with them, but it definitely hasn't happened yet.

*Mostly through a combination of similar words and context clues.

[gomipile]

"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of consonants cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened."

<s> It's okay, consonants are a conserved quantity in spoken English. For example, the Rs that disappear when a Bostonian "Pahks his cah" reappear when a Texan "worrrshes" hers. </s>

[gomipile]

Apparently, Gnome Ann's Sky is running into legal trouble over a potentially patented use of an interesting algorithm for procedural terrain generation.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/0...-superformula/

[Peelee]

<s> It's okay, consonants are a conserved quantity in spoken English. For example, the Rs that disappear when a Bostonian "Pahks his cah" reappear when a Texan "worrrshes" hers. </s>

Also, glottal stops are fun.

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