Language and English

Which was caused by, ta-daa, the Norman invasion of 1066. Nevertheless, the influence was largely limited to polysyllabic words, and had just about no influence on grammar. What *is* interesting about English from a diachronic linguistics standpoint is how unadorned English is. Most of our grammatical markers are just about gone except for vestigial constructions and the occasional irregular verb, and case markers are pretty much restricted to pronomial constructions. In morphology, we look at how words are built and assign the language a particular classification; English is rapidly becoming more and more an 'isolating' type language where some words may not be analysable at all. (Words like, "where some may not be at all" :-) English as the 400-pound gorilla lingua franca is also a bit distressing w.r.t how it strongly influences other languages. Kobardian is an OSV language, as I recall, where object typically precedes subject (this is a very strained word order, and very few languages are OSV or even more weirdly, OVS or VOS). One of the largest ghettos of Kobardian speakers is, of all places, Anaheim, Calif. (which also seems to have a large number per capita of underpaid linguists) who have noted with some regret that the Kobardian spoken by bilinguals is now often subject-object instead of object-subject, more in line with English. While absorbing vocabulary is sometimes necessary in a language's evolution to expand its expressiveness, grammatical distinctiveness in the process. This *didn't* happen with English and the Norman invasion, but it is happening with other languages and English today (look at things like pidgins and creole languages). Maybe I'll go to grad school and get my master's after I get my MD ... -- ----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu -- FORTUNE: You can overcome any obstacle. Try a steeplechase. ----------------