Thanks for those, Derek! - suddenly I'm not concerned in the least about the exhaust emissions from my gas-guzzling 4X4. I shall sleep sound in my bed tonight...
Once again, Derek, thank you for providing links. They are all brilliant. The last link should give David 'Guitar' Shouksmith some ideas for when he will be displaying his Lister at steam rallies!
On what pages do you find such a photo, David . Well it is always good to start a debate using such. But a explanation should follow I think. Since you dont, then I will try, but there is many things to it. Language history The English language is closely related to Frisian. English and Frisian belongs to the West Germanic branch of the Germanic family of languages like Dutch (Dutch) Low German (Low German) and (high) German. The development of language began in the 5th century AD with anglernes and Saxon conquest of Britain after the Romans had evacuated the country. "The Angles, Saxons and Jutes" (as the tribes was called, according to the old English tradition) came from present-day northern Germany and, more particularly, Schleswig-Holstein and was thus originally Danish the southern neighbors on the Jutland peninsula. During the Viking era English under the intense influence of Nordic, with the eastern part of the country was under Danish kings (Danelagen) and the northern part under Norwegian sovereignty, and that was borrowed several words, for example. window (oldeng. ēagþyrel, ēagduru) and they (oldeng. HI), and many native words was more Nordic pronunciation, for example. sister (oldeng. sweoster), give (oldeng. ġiefan; G = [j]), egg (oldeng. ǣġ). With the Norman conquest of England in 1066 was French upper-class language for several centuries, and large parts of the Germanic vocabulary were replaced or displaced to lavsproget. French loan words, for example. flower (fr. fleur), faith (fr. foi, ofr. feit), finish (fr. Ending (finiss-)) pay (fr. payer), tak (fr. plaisir). How Old English had a complex inflections similar to what one sees in contemporary Icelandic, Faroese and German grammar was already late Middle Ages has been reduced approximately to the present-day state. A major reason has been the reduction of unstressed syllables. The old endings came on the way to sound more or less alike, and the bends was eventually abandoned. Sometimes I wonder if there is any ancient original english words at all or if they all got lost in translation ? Is the language from Wales, Ireland and Gaelic still untouched original "english" ? Or written in Welsh: Yw'r iaith o Gymru, Iwerddon a Gaeleg yn dal heb ei gyffwrdd gwreiddiol "english"? The old lady from Davids photo is wrong, as the american language has evolved from english to a language of its own the last 400 years since it was a english colony til today. England just had barely 600 years more to evolve their language, since it was a danish colony till today. So when does a language evolve to another language, by other influence over years? 400 years? or almost 1000 years? We (danes) understand the swedes and the norwegians language almost with no difficulties - but we accept their charming lanquage just as it is - swedish and norwegian. We can even accept english as a language . The old lady - well I dont think she is quoted right and said that - I think it is written by a dumb, un-educated nationalist, who probably wants to harm the english people. Dumb because several dialects probably is more aberrant than traditional school english than american is. Un-educated because the fool dont know how english appeared. Nationalist because the fool uses both the queen and the language to bully the american language. And harming the english people making other countries think it is a english person who wrote it. Well I dont buy it - I think a longbearded talibanwarrior or even ISIS is behind But that is just speculations of course. Claus C
No, I don't think so. The symbol 'y' was just another way of writing 'th', hence 'ye' is just the same as writing 'the' and as far as I'm aware, was never pronounced 'yee'. Other things include names like 'Lloyd'. Originally, there were no capital letters and these were indicated by writing the lower case letter twice i.e. 'lloyd' - no capital at the start. Another thing that confuses people about old written English is where double 's' arises. The first 's' was written long (or tall, I suppose) and resembles the letter 'f'. It's a mistake to pronounce it as 'f'. Thus the name 'Musson' would be written resembling 'Mufson' but not pronounced as such. This is the exact equivalent of the 'scharfes s' in German, where for example, Street can be written 'Strasse' or 'Straße' The stick of what looks like a capital B is actually the tall first 's' and the curly bit is the second one...
I think there may be an element of truth in claiming that the Welsh language is the closest to any language used prior to the Romans landing en masse, but our language has had many origins - long before England, back when Albion was named - and by whom? I use 'grunt' an awful lot when the wife's around - seems to work. The rest is all double-dutch to me. (Where did that saying come from?)
'During the 16-19th century naval expansionist period in Europe, The Netherlands emerged as a natural competitor to the British at sea, culminating the Anglo-Dutch Wars. The almost complete lack of national enmity between the UK and the Netherlands, today, sometimes hides the origins of such phrases, but many derogatory terms involving 'Dutchness' came into the English language during the the 17th & 18th centuries (such as 'Dutch Courage' for fighting words spoken when drunk - especially after drinking Jenever, or 'Dutch gin'). Amdist all this nationalistic boorishness, the Dutch language as particularly singled out as an unintelligible gabble, and thus any tongue which could be called 'double Dutch', would be twice so.'
'Te Koop' I know what that means, and "Eefeninks and Morninks, we drink Warninks", though I think Bols might have the edge.
Start? It started with the fifth post on page 1 - we're now on page 4, Claus... If she had said that, it would have been within quote marks. Since it isn't, you can safely assume she didn't say it. The reason she's shown is because of the phrase 'the Queen's English' - Google it... Opinions are like ar&eholes, Claus; everyone has one - which is where the debate started, of course...
If I may, I'd like to add a few things.... There is another language connected to Germanic, spoken by people from Zeeuws Vlaanderen (now part of Nederland) up to (and even further south) the old town of Kales (now part of France, they call it Calais ). When these nice Spanish people came over for a visit (led by the Duke of Alba (sometimes written Alva)) a lot of Flemish people left their country, quite a few went to live in Scotland (they were both catholic) and also introduced some of their lingo. Many others went to The Netherlands, like a certain Mr Bols, a well known (and rich!) producer of jenever. His company still produces jenever till this very day. Merchants from Antwerp started the Oost-Indische Companie (East-Indian Company) amongst other things, thus starting Holland's Golden Century. Poor people stayed "home" and worked the fields or made wooden clogs. Until the outbreak of the Great War trainloads of clogs were exported to Germany and the Netherlands. The only cheaper option to clogs was to go bare footed. Here endeth the lesson. Cheerio, Wim
