Re: -es vs -en in English

Raymond Brown wrote:
> Oh - so what makes Charles the arbiter of what is and what is not English?
> As most modern French people would not readily be able to read Old French
> without studying it, I guess Old French is no longer to be called Old
> French.  And as for Classical Greek - no modern Greek can read it without
> learning it first.  Guess we can't call that Ancient Greek any longer!
Indeed, I've read that the difference between Classical Greek and Modern
Greek is greater than that between, say, Classical Latin and Modern
Spanish.  The distinction between when you have different forms of one
language, and another language evolving out of another is quite
arbitrary, I suppose, as in the Old English/Anglo-Saxon dispute.

> The comparison is silly.  One should consider that every single cell in
> one's body has changed (quite often, I believe, tho I'm no biologist)
With the exception of the brain cells.  But even those brain cells are
made up of different molecules than they were when you were born.

--
"Old linguists never die - they just come to voiceless stops." -
anonymous
http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/X-Files
http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Books.html
ICQ: 18656696
AIM Screen-Name: NikTailor