hello Gordon You're correct, English is a sort of conglomeration of a number of languages. In fact it contains many words which were derived from French origins. Prison being one such example.
But i think the point that Gordon was trying to make, whilst very tongue in cheek, was just the Americanisation of the language. But in all fairness and seriousness, languages evolve naturally, that's just a part of the changing world that we live in. In fact, in a couple of hundred years time, were we to somehow manage to survive that long, I doubt that the English language we use today would still be in common use. It always evolves and that's not really anything to complain about. Lynne On 3 Sep 2011, at 10:11, Gordon Keen wrote: Hi As you say it's all getting a bit circular really. Some aspects of the form of english spoken in the U.S. are in fact a purer form than modern British english, for example the use of "fall" to denote the season following summer - we adopted a french word, autumn, sometime in the nineteenthth century. Now as to the term english - strictly speaking english was last used in the eleventh century as the Norman french usurped the anglo saxon as the official written form and became an integral part of our speech as well, saxon english survived but mainly amongst the lower classes, this is illustrated by the words we use to describe the foods we eat and the animals they come from - thus pork from the french but pig from the saxon, beef from the french and cow from the saxon and most tellingly venison from the french and deer from the saxon. This demonstrates the dual nature of our language. Equally other cultures encountered by the British have contributed to our vocabulary, sofa, tea, khaki and many more are imports some still in the native state some we adapted like tea from the chinese and indian chi which in the east has a different tonal quality. So what is this "english" we are arguing about? G >From Bridgerule in glorious England. On 3 Sep 2011, at 09:28, Gordon Smith wrote: > Hello Mary(o) > > On 2 Sep 2011, at 18:35, Mary Stores wrote: > > I think I might as well speak Spanish, as comprehendable as that statement > was ... not! lol > > Yes, that's correct. Well, it was just meant to make the point that this is > my language to wreck, not yours 'cause you're an American and, thus, a > "Usurper". :) > > This debate does go in circles, doesn't it? > > it does, doesn't it. Nevertheless, argue as much as you like, the facts > remain the facts, that American, so-called "International English" is a total > contradiction in terms. "International" and "English", I mean. If you insist > on usurping a language, why couldn't you make it some obscure language such > as Klingon, Volcan or something which, when all said and done, really were > American inventions? Then, of course, nobody could ever have any problems no > matter how many butcherings were done to the native spellings or grammatical > interpretations or colloquialisms. Then, you as a nation could really hold > up your collective heads and claim to have your own native language as we do, > the French do, the Germans do and so many other nations do. They didn't just > jump on the backs of other nationalities. ;-) > ======================================== The Just-chat E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free To modify your subscription options, please visit for forum's dedicated web pages located at: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/just-chat> You can find an archive of all messages posted to the %(list name)s group at either of the following: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/just-chat/index.html> or: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> You may subscribe with your RSS reader at the following URL: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> --------------------------------------- ======================================== The Just-chat E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free To modify your subscription options, please visit for forum's dedicated web pages located at: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/just-chat> You can find an archive of all messages posted to the %(list name)s group at either of the following: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/just-chat/index.html> or: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> You may subscribe with your RSS reader at the following URL: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> ---------------------------------------
