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Norwegian! A North Germanic Language of Norway

VIKING INFLUENCE on the English Language!

If we exclude the influence of the Romance languages, the vocabulary of English seems to be primarily West Germanic, but the sentence structure is more North Germanic.




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#OldEnglish #Old English
#WestGermanic #West Germanic
#NorthGermanic #North Germanic

Why Is English Spelling So Damn Weird?!

There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the spelling of English words. For every rule, there seem to be just as many exceptions. But this video explains that there actually are reasons (most of them bad) why the spelling of English words is so inconsistent.

Is English Really a Germanic Language?

English vocabulary has been highly influenced by Romance languages but English was originally a Germanic language.

Of the English vocabulary, about half of the words are Romance words but Germanic words tend to predominate in casual, everyday conversation.



I thought I would run some of the examples from the video through a Microsoft translator:

English: Cow
German: Kuh (similar)
Danish: Ko (similar)

English: Pig
German: Schwein (similar to English swine)
Danish: Gris (different)

English: Sheep
German: Schaf (similar)
Danish: Får (different)


English: Snail
German: Schnecke (kind of similar)
Danish: Sneglen (similar)


English: The good king
German: Der gute König (similar)
Danish: Den gode konge (similar)


English: The good queen
German: Die gute Königin (similar; Königin is the feminine form of König (king))
Danish: Den gode dronning (The first two words are similar. The word for queen is different.)


English: I had lunch with my friend and we read some books.
German: Ich hatte mit meinem Freund zu Mittag gegessen und wir lasen einige Bücher.
Danish: Jeg spiste frokost med min ven, og vi læste nogle bøger.

I see parallels in the last example, but to someone with no background in German, the parallels might be more difficult to see.

ADDENDUM:

I thought I would run the examples above through Google Translate to get the words and phrases for Dutch and Frisian.

English: Cow
Dutch: Koe
Frisian: Cow


English: Pig
Dutch: varken
Frisian: baarch


English: Sheep
Dutch: schapen
Frisian: skiep


English: Snail
Dutch: slak
Frisian: slak


English: The good king
Dutch: De goede koning
Frisian: De goede kening


English: The good queen
Dutch: De goede koningin
Frisian: De goede keninginne


English: I had lunch with my friend and we read some books.
Dutch: Ik heb geluncht met mijn vriend en we hebben wat boeken gelezen.
Frisian: Ik hie lunsj by myn freon en wy lêze wat boeken.