On Thu, 2003-10-23 at 19:58, Cam Ellison wrote: > * Erik Steffl ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > > Ron Johnson wrote: > > ... > > > > > > - Why English doesn't have gender, since it's predecessor, German, > > > does have gender? > > > > looks like a lot of unneccessary stuff was removed from english > > language (last century or two?), as far as I can tell it's because it's > > used as a non-native language for pragmatic purposes (i.e. as long as > > the message gets accross it's all good:-) > > > Strictly speaking, English did not descend from German, but they have > a common ancestry in a version that was spoken during the time the > Romans were in power. Angles, Jutes, and Saxons invaded England over > a period of time and pushed the Celtic peoples into Wales and > Scotland, and Anglo-Saxon (which was a synthetic language like Latin) > became dominant. Then William the Conqueror arrived in 1066 (and all > that) and the language of the upper class was then Norman French.
Hmmm. http://www.utexas.edu/depts/classics/documents/PIE.html http://www.m-w.com/about/look.htm "The earliest period begins with the migration of certain Germanic tribes from the continent to Britain in the fifth century A. D" -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Ron Johnson, Jr. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jefferson, LA USA "You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time." Bertrand Meyer -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
