Unlike other Germanic languages, English shares a large portion of their vocabulary with French and Latin, often attributed to the period of Norman French dominance in England after 1066. The size of this Romance influence on English, along with some other technical aspects such as pronunciation and syntax, has led some radical linguists to believe that English should in fact not be seen as a Germanic language, but rather as a Romance-Germanic hybrid. However, the general consensus is that the overall English vocabulary is only a third of Old English origin (so, Germanic) but that the core vocabulary is entirely Old English. The keyword here is core, as most linguists claim that French and Latin influence only enters the language through a handful of basic words but a vast majority of academic terms. For many, this seems to be the most important criterion for its classification as a Germanic language.
An Ageless Debate, with Professor Gupta [Part II]
A few months have passed since I had published an article detailing Professor Gupta’s hypothesis regarding an alternate cosmological model to determining the age of our…