Re: question - Turco-Japanese (British Vikings, 400 AD)

Cowbert von Moo scripsit:


> Not to speak of the English grammar.  It's not like _that_ came from
> German, French or Latin.  It's pretty much wholesale Norse.  A Norse
> friend of mine, who was on a MUD I was building for, once challenged
> me to find a sentence I could say in English that required changing
> the word order into Norse.
But English did not *borrow* its grammar from Norse.  The similarities
that exist are a result of the common descent of the two languages
from Proto-Germanic, or in some cases are due to parallel but independent
developments.  In general, and with only a few and doubtful exceptions,
languages do not borrow syntax from one another.

Vocabulary, though, is a different matter.  English borrowed thousands
of words from Old Norse: such ordinary words as "uncle" and "sky" are
of Old Norse origin.  In some cases, the cognates of these words
already existed in English, as in the Norse borrowing "skirt" next to
the native word "shirt".  (Words beginning "sk" are almost always
borrowings, because a sound-change during the Old English period
changed initial "sk" to "sh".)

Note that when I say "Old Norse", I could equally well say "Old Danish".

--
John Cowan  cowan@ccil.org  www.reutershealth.com  www.ccil.org/~cowan
If a traveler were informed that such a man [as Lord John Russell] was
leader of the House of Commons, he may well begin to comprehend how the
Egyptians worshiped an insect.  --Benjamin Disraeli

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