Quick, what happened in 1066? No, your parents were not born. The Normans, led by William the Conqueror, defeated King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings. William the Conqueror was previously known as William the Bastard, which though harsh, was better than his other nickname (William the F*&$*#! g Vicious).
This meant that the Normans (French Vikings, essentially), brought in French, which became the language of the court, which of course filtered down to the common people and resulted in peasants using words like fromage and prestidigitation. No really, they did.
So there you go. English is a mish-mash of Celtic, Latin, German, and French. This is why absolutely nothing makes sense and spelling is completely arbitrary.
That being said, English is one of the most flexible languages in the world. We can happily throw in new words, change meanings, and pretty much do whatever because the rules do not matter (though I am sure some linguists would disagree). So go out and have some cheese, sausage, pasta or whatever-the-hell-the-Celts-ate in honor of our linguistic ancestors. Skoal!
Cheers,
-Jason
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4 comments:
Funny that.
I was just re-reading Ivanhoe (by Sir Walter Scott) this morning while in queue to get my Visa at the American Consulate in Bucharest. It deals with the same problems you mentioned between the two layers of society- the French speaking Norman lords, and the Saxon Yeomans.
Interesting coincidence.
Well, great minds do think alike :)
...Didn't the celts rip out sheep stomachs, stuff them with cow meat, and then cook them in sheep pancreas juice or something?
I'm not eating that.
Well, the Scots are Celtic, but I was looking for something more 'univeral' to the Celtic diet. Something like 'Baked Roman Bits' or something.
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