Talk:English language

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Who copied whom?

The text of the first several paragraphs of current page (15 Aug 2006, 1430 EST) is nearly identical to that at http://language.school-explorer.com/info/English_language.

past participle

The past participle in the Germanic languages in earlier times was formed with the prefix ge-. Does somebody know, when this prefix was lost in English? And what could have been the reason for the change? --::Slomox:: >< 12:12, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It was never very consistently present in English. Already in Old English there's variation; the "ge-" prefix is there sometimes but not always. In Middle English it starts to drop out even more, and now it's only found in archaic words like "yclept". In North Germanic languages, it had already disappeared by the time of Old Norse, and it's absent from many Low German dialects too, and I think possibly Frisian as well, so losing it is hardly uniquely English. I don't know if any research has been done into the question why it was lost (linguists very rarely ask "why" but only "when" and "how"), but I can speculate some plausible reasons for you: (1) morphologically, it's not necessary, as past participles can often be distinguished from other verb forms even without the ge-, and can always be distinguished from other verb forms on the basis of their syntactic usage. (2) Influence from language contact with Norse speakers and possibly Low German (and Frisian?) speakers may have had an influence. (3) Phonetically it was an unstressed syllable without a real consonant (it was first pronounced /jə/, not /gə/, and later just /ɪ/), so there wasn't much phonetic "body" there and the syllable could easily be elided in rapid speech. User:Angr 12:28, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What if...

Harald Hadrada had beat Harold the Saxon and William the Conquerer? Would English be a lot more Scandanavianish? Would we have fewer words of Latin, Greek, and French in our vocabulary? Would you and I today be able to speak with modern-day Scandanavians? Would the Great Vowel Shift have occured?Cameron Nedland 04:32, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See this page for a humorous look at the origins of the Great Vowel Shift: [1]

Missing Words

Is the English Language missing any words to describe your thoughts? There may need to be an article in Wikipedia regarding the development of language. I can't find a word right now to describe a piece of wood that is sized for construction (think building a desk or box) or sculpted. Board is too general, and so is plank. Scantling approaches the idea. I've done a thesaurus search on "plank" and I can't find it. What I want is a word to describe a board cut to supposed desired dimension. Whether or not you agree with my example, the important thing is that we address the formation of words to express ideas, and how consensus is derived. How does a person inject a new word into our language?

Simple: you make up something that sounds appropriate and start using it. If other people like it and start using it, it becomes a real word. Take "dude" for example.Cameron Nedland 15:16, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I think we make up words all the time without realizing it. I think the only way it can become mainstream is if it's used by a well-known figure (for example, "truthiness" with Stephen Colbert) -67.163.21.39 08:08, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Or "misunderestimated" :-)

Duplication

Further to my comment on 26 July, I have made a minor edit to para 3, where it said that English spread "to the rest of the British Isles... then the to the Republic of Ireland". This is clearly nonsensical for two reasons. Firstly the ROI is part of the British Isles (which is a purely geographical term) and secondly, the adoption of English on the island of Ireland preceeded the creation of the ROI as a nation state.I have therefore deleted the ROI from the list of countries that English has spread to. Nothing against the ROI, and if it is felt that it should be specifically mentioned on the list then the first part of the sentence will need to be changed instead. JeHab 12:35, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]