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UiO linguist makes sensational claim - English is a Scandinavian language
tomos:
What if it was Scandinavian structure with Germanic & French words?-TaoPhoenix (November 29, 2012, 05:16 PM)
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English words are mainly of 'West-Germanic', Scandinavian ('North-Germanic'?), and French origin.
I'm not sure of proportions.
(I couldnt answer your question either way.)
PS I've no vested interest in the article. I've read a fair bit about the evolution of the English language but not really -whats-the-word- 'scholarly' stuff :-[
There's influence from all the mentioned countries - whether it gets called Germanic or North Germanic doesnt make any difference to me one way or the other!
TaoPhoenix:
I dunno, it all feels "late" to me. Science, I get, each discovery builds on one ten years ao. English has basically been stable since like 1650, so *now* someone decides to compare Scandinavian structure to English? Really?!
barney:
Personally, I like Yoda's sentence structure :P.
Since English is a living language, its vocabulary and sentence structure changes over time. (Ever looked at Elizabethan English? Or Chaucer's writings?) What was taught as formal English when I was in pre-through-high school would be laughable today - half a century later - and the authorized structure has changed since then, as well. Methinks the report is more a snapshot than a profile.
tomos:
I dunno, it all feels "late" to me. Science, I get, each discovery builds on one ten years ao. English has basically been stable since like 1650, so *now* someone decides to compare Scandinavian structure to English? Really?!-TaoPhoenix (November 29, 2012, 07:56 PM)
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lol, I know what you mean.
The title is very tabloidy too ;)
If what they argue is the case, it must be common knowledge. But probably not considered reason enough to change the categorisation. The academic world OTOH, can be very conservative and attached to their theories, and in this case, their categorisations. Still seems like a bunch of semantics to me.
Arizona Hot:
What I got out of it was that English is a lot more Scandinavian than we thought.
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