Richard Heathfield's personal threads.

[Richard]

The linguists classify English as a Germanic language. It has borrowed
a lot from other languages, especially Latin and the Romance
languages, particularly Norman Frenchy. However, it's basic
grammatical structure and it's most fundamental words remain Germanic.

It might be known as Germanic because of the vocabulary but the English
grammar is nothing like German grammar in my opinion.

 

[Richard Heathfield]

Tor Rustad said:

CBFalconer wrote:


I didn't count India, English is indeed an official language there.
However, do they really have English as their first language?

One of, yes. It was due to be phased out in the 1960s, but this led to
protests from so many quarters that the Official Languages Act, 1963 was
introduced; this extended the official life of English indefinitely (that
is, until such time as India as a whole should get sick and tired of it,
which it hasn't yet).

Here's a copy of the relevant Act (sorry it's in PDF):
http://www.indianrailways.gov.in/deptts/off-lang/act1963_eng.PDF

 

[William Hughes]

It might be known as Germanic because of the vocabulary but the English
grammar is nothing like German grammar in my opinion.

Given that the grammar close to identical is, this a very strange
opinion is. (Sure there is a difference in the way that a verb
sometimes
placed is. However, the fact that you English in the German word
order understand can should a clue be, that the grammar not very
different is.)

- William (Yoda) Hughes

 

[santosh]

Sure do, the Germanic languages not only include Old English and
Middle English, but also New English! A tree view of these related
languages, can be seen e.g. here:

http://softrat.home.mindspring.com/germanic.html


I suppose neither of us are linguistics experts, but I can read at
least 5 different Germanic languages, perhaps even 7+ when drunk.

If living in US, you might not been that exposed to the related
Germanic languages. Their similarities are quite striking, even
between countries with little contact.


I didn't count India, English is indeed an official language there.
However, do they really have English as their first language?

Nope. The first language happens to be whatever tongue is native to that
particular region. But English is _strongly_ emphasised in schools and
is the medium of instruction for many of them. In addition Hindi is
often studied as a third language in regions where it is not a mother
tongue.

 

[Richard]

Given that the grammar close to identical is, this a very strange
opinion is. (Sure there is a difference in the way that a verb
sometimes
placed is. However, the fact that you English in the German word
order understand can should a clue be, that the grammar not very
different is.)

Precisely. The ordering of words in English & German are 180 degrees
apart ....

German Grammar is incredibly difficult. I don't even know many Germans
who understand German Grammar. And that's not even taking into account
Officious German which is another language all over again...

 

[James Kuyper]

(e-mail address removed) writes: ....

It might be known as Germanic because of the vocabulary but the English
grammar is nothing like German grammar in my opinion.

No offense, and I apologize if I'm wrong about this, but that sounds
like the comment of someone who hasn't learned many languages other than
those two. Sure, there are significant differences, but lots of
similarities, too. I've studied Spanish, German, Russian, and Mandarin.
English and German are far more closely related to each other than any
other pair of languages I know.

 

[Richard]

No offense, and I apologize if I'm wrong about this, but that sounds
like the comment of someone who hasn't learned many languages other
than those two. Sure, there are significant differences, but lots of
similarities, too. I've studied Spanish, German, Russian, and
Mandarin. English and German are far more closely related to each
other than any other pair of languages I know.

No offence taken. But I personally found Italian MUCH closed to English
and certainly easier for my small brain to deal with.

 

[James Kuyper]

Precisely. The ordering of words in English & German are 180 degrees
apart ....

No, for two different reasons. First of all, it's not as simple as
reversing the order of two words, sometimes the differences between
English and German word order are far more complicated to describe than
as a simple reversal. However, and most importantly, German and English
often use exactly the same word order.
Word ordering is only one of the aspects of grammar, and in many other
aspects German and English grammar are similar or even identical. For
instance, in neither language does the form of the verb depend upon the
gender of the subject, as is common in the Semitic languages.
English only has three cases: subjective, objective, and possessive
cases, and they only matter for pronouns. German has four cases, and
they apply to all nouns, not just pronouns. This seems like a big
difference, but in comparison with Russian, which has 17 cases, both
German and English seem pretty similar.
Both German and English use verb tenses to convey time information, and
have a very similar list of tenses. They seem almost identical in this
regard when compared with Mandarin, where time order is indicated by
helper words (none of which corresponds exactly to any English verb tense).

 

[Richard Tobin]

It might be known as Germanic because of the vocabulary but the English
grammar is nothing like German grammar in my opinion.

Bear in mind that "Germanic" doesn't mean "like modern German".
Modern German is just another Germanic language.

Both are Germanic languages becase they are both descended from early
Germanic.

-- Richard

 

[CBFalconer]

Nope. The first language happens to be whatever tongue is native
to that particular region. But English is _strongly_ emphasised in
schools and is the medium of instruction for many of them. In
addition Hindi is often studied as a third language in regions
where it is not a mother tongue.

Interesting. You appear to be the resident expert on India.

 

[William Hughes]

Precisely. The ordering of words in English & German are 180 degrees
apart ....

Not true. There is a minor difference in verb placement (sometimes).
However, for the most part word order is identical.
English word order

The weather is nice if the blue sky is visible.

German word order

The weather is nice if the blue sky visible is.

Completely different word order

The is sky blue if nice is the weather

And even if it were true, there is a whole lot more to grammar
than word ordering. English and German grammar are very similar.


- William Hughes

 

[CBFalconer]

No offense, and I apologize if I'm wrong about this, but that
sounds like the comment of someone who hasn't learned many
languages other than those two. Sure, there are significant
differences, but lots of similarities, too. I've studied
Spanish, German, Russian, and Mandarin. English and German are
far more closely related to each other than any other pair of
languages I know.

Don't worry. That particular Richard is very close to a pure
troll. The problem is that the name is fairly common, so you have
to PLONK him with a full return address.

 

[Christopher Benson-Manica]

(snip discussion of English vs. German)

Perhaps the time has come to move this discussion to sci.lang?