Why is English a Germanic language?

Argent was an old English word for silver (derived from Latin through Norman-French) , which has fallen into disuse. Note the chemical symbol Ag from the Latin.

Regards

R

I stand quasi-corrected, sort of. Although I believe if "argent" = "silver" came in to English through the Normans, we would be talking about Middle English, not Old English (Anglo-Saxon).
 
Interestingly enough, a romance language still survived in Romania, despite many more later invasions, and much less time ruled by the Romans.

I believe it wasn't actually ruled by the Romans and that Latin was spoken mainly as a lingua franca between the unrelated tribes.
 
I've always heard English classed as a Germanic language with an infusion of French vocabulary.

Actually, the influence of old Occitan for old English is probably as important than medieval French.

I mean, there is words in common between the two languages that are not between english and french, as "rape", "rascal" or "brandy".
 
English might be basically Germanic but...


"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
--James D. Nicoll


This seems to be especially true of American English where we steal new words at the drop of a hat and create new ones almost as fast - do other versions of English do that as well?
 
From the Head of Modern Languages:

European English :
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where! more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as
replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vordskontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

 
After America heard about the changes made to english in Europe, they decided to make their own changes not to be outdone by the limeys.

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The Modern Language Association announced today it has devised and will implement several major reforms to the idiosyncratic and often hard to memorize spellings of American's English words.

The reforms mark the largest and most radical set of changes ever made to American English spellings. They are the first deliberate changes to spellings made since Noah Webster's reforms early in the 19th century. The spelling changes are intended to be non-mandatory, and will serve primarily as an alternative to the confusing and difficult traditional spellings.

While the suggestions come from an influential standards-setting body, it is not certain how soon they will be adopted universally by institutions such as educational institutions, governmental and legal organizations.

Changes to Spellings

First among the changes is the replacement of the "ough" letter combination in words such as bough and through with a triple "o", turning them into booo and throoo. This does not apply to words such as rough and tough which will now be spelled "ruff" and "tuff".

As if this weren't enuff, the MLA has suggested that we apply the letters "ae" in spelling any "a" sound in words like "cat" (now "caet") and "bat" (now "baet"). Aet laest we haeve ourselves a clear way to distinguish between the vowel sound in "aents" aend "aunts", aend between "lah dee dah" aend the law of the "laend".

The word "you" will from now on be caepitalized in its use mid-sentence, which is a new form of conventional respect You should appreciate greatly, thooo it may take You some time to grow used to it.

All "o" sounds in words such aes "boat" aend "throat" are now to be spelled as "ow". Sow "boat" becomes "bowt" aend "throat" becomes "throwt". While many now doubt will find this change to be confusing the MLA howpes You wown't be. The changes considered aes a whowle are deemed consistent and haeve been introwduced to improve ease of use.

According to the MLA we haeve return'd to the owld apostrophe - d form of the paest tense.

The vahwel "ah" in "lot" becomes "laht", the vahwel "ih" in "lit" becomes "liht" aend the vahwel "uh" in "cup" becuhms "cuhp". Guhd for You ihf the owld spehlings dihd naht serve you wehl.

New learners uhv Amaerican Ihnglihsh wihl be pleas'd aend reliev'd to learn thaet "schwah" sounds will be chang'd to uh "_" spehll_ng, aend thaet word-fin_l "e" spell_ngs aes in "fine wine" wihl bee replaac'd wihth uh double-vahwel c_nvehntiunn aes ihn "fiin wiin", aes will all "long vahw_ls" incluud_ng w_rds liik "week" (daa uhv week) aend "week" (naht strong).

Hihstorihc_l Prehc_dehnts

Nowah Wehbst_r ihs faamuhs for spehl_ng reeforms hee maad in th_ uhrlee 19th cehnt_ree, for hihs traenslaation uhv th_ Biib_l aend for th_ dihctiuhnaeree thaet baers hihs naam.

Wehbst_r's chaang_s ihncluud'd th_ muuv_ng uhv th_ "e" fruhm the Brihtihsh "centre" to "center" (now "cehnter"), th_ chaang fruhm "our" to "or" in w_rds like "favour" (now "faavor"), uhmuhng uth_r sihgnihfihc_nt chaang_s.

Suhmwuht iirahnihc_lee, mehnee, ahlthooo naht ahl, uhv hihs sihmplihfihcaatiuhns fehl ihntuu cahm_n uus_g uhlongsiid th_ orihgihn_l v_rsiuhns, reesuhlt_ng ihn uh sihtuuaatiuhn eev_n mor cuhnfuus'd thaen beefor.

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okay I admit it, I stole that one from here
http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s2i6961
 
Its because our grammar is very German and our vocabulary is rooted in german. However, we did attempt to mask this and we borrowed word from romance languages and we attempted to latinize it by adding prefixes. But i say is classiffied as Germanic because it bears more resemblances to German than to romance languages. But since english a borrower of words, its hard to classify, so we just stick it in "Germanic" because of roots
 
Your wording about "the English adopting" is odd, but I think I understand your question. The leaders of the Franks and various Goths who occupied Gaul and Spain often sought to legitimize their rule by claiming they were sucessors of Rome. Adoption of Latin and Roman Christianity was a way to do this. Angles (the English) did not have such a need.

That also depended on the level of Romanization, Germania Superior, Germania Inferior and Belgica became mostly Germanic. Although these regions did border the tribal lands of the Franks, something which certainly didn't apply for the Goths, Vandals etc.

@ Xavier & Poefacedkilla: Money, Geld, geld and judge, Richter, rechter are different, but good night is goede nacht in Dutch and good, thanks is goed, bedankt (or less common just dank (je/u* = you (the ordinary/polite form (latter can also be plural)).

(*= u in Dutch basically is similar to Sie in German and vous in French.)
 
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