No, English didn't almost become French |

[@5mnz7fg]

English without French/Latin has many similarities with Low German. I have heard that roughly until 1900 English sailors and German fishermen could understand each other (at least on a basic level).

[@lonestarr1490]

English sailors and German fishermen still understand each other on a basic level. Wild gestures and aggressive shouting are well understood all around the globe.

[@sakkra83]

In the Lake District Region you could communicate with Low German. I don't know if that still rings true, but I know of a German POW that was interned there and with low German he could get by.

[@alicemilne1444]

@@sakkra83 I grew up speaking Central Eastern Scots and Northeast Scots as well as English. When I spent a few summers as a student working in a guest house on one of the East Frisian islands, I was startled to find how much of the local Low German dialect I understood. It really annoyed the German students who worked alongside me, because they thought it unfair that they couldn't understand the locals and I - a foreigner - did.

[@williamrees6662]

1900? 🤣🤣🤣

[@UnMirloBlanco]

Jetzt würde mich ein Video über die zufällige Erfindung der Zahnradbahn interessieren.

[@CodingGenesis]

Ebenfalls.

[@sk.43821]

+1

[@stevenedwards3754]

Ich auch

[@hypatian9093]

Rewboss knows how to catch our attention ;)

[@ColdSphinX]

"Best" use of modern flags I've seen was on a webpage that used the Swiss flag...so you did not know what it stood for... German? French? Italian?

[@burkhardkloss]

Romansh, of course. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romansh_language

[@donmacdon]

Allegra! and why not Romansh?

[@counterfeit1148]

I would have guessed Swiss German

[@somnvm37]

fun fact: olly richards also said that the difference between old russian and modern russian, is that one poet changed it [yes, 900s and 1700s is one language, then Pushkin gets born and make it all new] he also said that pushkin was a super polyglot [the only confrimed language he knows was friench. some say english and polish but hat's it] it's *slightly* simplified. It's like saying that before martin luthor germany was actually shinto and they only knew english, and then martin luthor tought them german and made them all christian.

[@2712animefreak]

German language also had quite an impact for centuries. Here in Croatia, in the parts that were mostly ruled by Austria for a long time the speech of the city elites was often rife with German words. The Yugoslav years and internal migrations have severely reduced their number, but the "traditional" urban dialect of Zagreb is like that. Later, as many people went to work Germany, German loanwords seeped into various trades. So, the jargon of plumbers, mechanics, etc. is full of German words.

[@Hand-in-Shot_Productions]

I didn't know Croatian, especially that of plumbers and mechanics, had that many German words! Considering how Austria ruled over Croatia for a few centuries, the German legacy would make perfect sense. Thanks for the information! Also, as someone who is interested in rail transportation, I recognize that logo and name: it's ČKD, manufacturer of the Tatra T3 and other _Tatra_ trams!

[@SchwarbageTruck]

I always tell people that random Greek/Latin words being in English came from knowing those languages being the old-timey way of saying "I WENT TO COLLEGE"

[@kaworunagisa4009]

Your "quite basic" knowledge of linguistic history is far more than I learned in uni while majoring in Applied Linguistics 😅

[@SamAronow]

Interesting; I was taught that the transition to Early Modern English was in 1475, when printing in English began. But I agree with you on everything else; I’m surprised by Olly’s sloppiness in this particular case.

[@snuggery6486]

You watch Rewboss too? That's awesome.

[@SamAronow]

@@snuggery6486 I came for the linguistics and stayed for the travelogues.

[@rewboss]

Often with these things you can't really put a precise date on it. You could choose 1430, when Chancery English was first used in official documents instead of Anglo-French; or 1475, when Caxton introduced his printing press; or 1535, with the publication of Coverdale's Bible; or 1549, with the publication of the Book of Common Prayer. I would say that Caxton's printing press was an important event that made the transition possible, but not until ordinary people got their hands on books printed and distributed nationwide can we really say the transition actually started -- and that would be the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. But, as you know, the distinction between different stages of any language is quite arbitrary.

[@snuggery6486]

My favorite youtubers are having a discussion. This is cool.

[@dorderre]

@@rewboss You could say this about the first and second vowel shifts from old to middle and new high german, even modern standard german as well. Each was a gradual process taking several dozen to hundreds of years. I think you already made a video on this topic, I gotta watch it again.

[@soundscape26]

Your knowledge of linguistics being "quite basic" makes me feel quite bad about myself. 😄 Nice video with clear explanations. I watch Olly's videos here and there and he's quite a nice chap, but of course that doesn't mean he's always right. I suspect there will be a follow-up to this.

[@carpediem5232]

I don't think he uses "basic" as commonly known, just that it's the basic knowledge you find in most introductory and entry level linguistic books/ papers. You have to engage with some linguistic literature, just not at an advanced level.

[@KaiHenningsen]

@@carpediem5232 The levels seem to be layman, basic, and advanced (at least), with Olly being layman and rewboss basic.

[@carpediem5232]

@@KaiHenningsen Yes, pretty much.

[@soundscape26]

@@KaiHenningsen There should also be intermediate there somewhere.

[@nick4506]

there is the same misconseption from creationists. one modern thing didn't come from other modern thing but they have a common ancestor that no longer lives and they both have been changing ever since. like American engish doesn't come from english english but english english from 100 years ago when they stopped trying to teach proper British English in American schools. words like soccer and gasoline come from britten but there language has continued to evolve and has moved away from those but American English still has them.

[@jensschroder8214]

French was the language of princes and kings in Germany for a long time. That is why many words were adopted into German here as well. But the later demarcation towards France also turned many things back. It was different in Switzerland and Austria. On the other hand, German today has adapted many English words, sometimes even with a different meaning.

[@MichaEl-rh1kv]

That was real fun. Thanks.

[@LloydSkyLion]

I have never interacted on your comment section , although, I've been a member of the channel for quite sometime. Being an ESL teacher in LATAM I find this topic absolutely fascinating. Of course , I also like your insight into the German culture since,, I've trying to learn German myself for quite sometime after all. I just wanted to say I really enjoyed this video and I hope you don't shy away from making more videos like this. Viielen Dank!

[@rzeka]

I really appreciate when you make videos like this because they always kick off great discussions in the comments. I really enjoyed talking about how we think of the "age" of a language in the comments of that other video. I like that you talked about how the words that English adopted from Anglo-Norman were mostly to do with legal stuff (the stuff that the people who were "in charge" dealt with). I also want to point out the types of words that English _didn't_ adopt: the pronouns, common grammar words, and "basic vocabulary" of Modern English is almost all directly inherited from Old English. (Check out the Old English Swadesh List on Wiktionary, it demonstrates this very well). This goes to show how Anglo-Norman definitely did not change English into a different language - it had a significant influence, sure, but not enough to say it replaced Old English.

[@sk.43821]

Thank you for this insightful addendum. Greetings from 🇩🇪

[@jandron94]

So the words 'cause (because), blue, car, thine, across, around, thine, easy, very, just, etc. are mostly "legal" ? One easy test : delete all the French derived vocabulary in your comment and ask someone what the text is about, do the same exercise but deleting the old-English vocabulary, which version is more explicit ?

[@rzeka]

@oliver legendre No, those aren't mostly "legal" words. Except for "just", I guess. What made you think they're "legal" words?

[@jandron94]

@@rzekaI was just responding to your linking on Rewboss statement on legal vocabulary. French vocabulary is so present in English everywhere.

[@danic9304]

Thank you for this! As someone with a reasonable grounding in medieval English history that short annoyed me somewhat.

[@frankhooper7871]

To be fair, the differentiation between 'Old English', 'Middle English' and 'Modern English' is also misleading. There was never a day when England woke up and decided to change from old to middle, or from middle to modern - it was a chronological continuum of gradual changes...and the same can be said for every language spoken today; they have all changed over time - granted, some have changed more than others. For example, I find it easier to read Cervantes in Spanish than Shakespeare in English, as the Spanish language hasn't altered as much.

[@strafrag1]

Excellent video. Bravo.

[@n.mariner5610]

In der lokalen Sprache speziell in Erlangen und Schwabach sind viele französische Bezeichnungen in der Originalform integriert. Man hat da den aus Frankreich vertriebenen Hugenotten Asyl gewährt und sie haben sich mit Teilen ihrer Sprache revanchiert. In Schwabach wurde bis in die 1950er Jahre in der "Franzosenkirche" die Messe regelmäßig in französischer Sprache gelesen.

[@John_Weiss]

As recent episodes of, "The British History Podcast," have taught me, William the Bastard [a.k.a. "the Conqueror", a.k.a. "the Got Really Damn Lucky"] and his Normans _didn't give a rat's azz_ about their Anglo-Saxon subjects. So they certainly didn't bother wasting their time trying to make the Anglo-Saxons, who they considered stupid anyway, learn their language. Nor did they learn Anglo-Saxon, since they had Shire-Reaves, Thanes, and -Nerds- Monks who they could force to learn Norman and translate for them.

[@goebelmasse]

Using the German (or any other) flag to represent a language is always misleading. Neither Austria nor Switzerland are Germany… or did I miss the reannexion of the "Ostmark" in the last days. And there are rather huge German speaking minorities in Danmark and Belgium, with minority rights in Danmark. But on most places in the World Wide Web I have to click on 🇩🇪 to select the German language. It is ridiculous. If at least the "DE" abbreviation or the term "Deutsch" was used in a combo box! And why do I write this in English, was eine Fremdsprache für mich ist. 😉

[@John_Weiss]

Oh, on a separate topic: Latin remained a spoken and written language well into the 17th-18th century. Latin was the language spoken at the first Universities. Sir Isaac Newton wrote the, "Principia Mathematica" - the book that basically created the entire field of physic - _in Latin._ Because Latin, even in the 17th Century, was the language of written-scholarship. Kinda like how scientific publications at the end of the 19th/start of the 20th Century were all written in German, or how most academic journals are now written in English. So, it only makes sense that Latin entered in to English … and every other language in Europe … during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance by wan of those educated at universities.

[@almaximos1]

Some Germans may think that they have a “pure” Germanic language… or “purer” in regards to English. I don’t know where this comes from. Maybe as you pointed out due to the possible confusion between Germanic and German. But German is just one of the Germanic languages…. for me as an Italo-German I find it always pleasant to recognize Latin-rooted words in English.

[@chrisko6439]

I always found interesting that in English you have words of French origin for the meat of animals. Beef, mutton, pork. Probably only the powerful (invaders) got to eat lots of meat after 1066. edit: Oh, nevermind, you mentioned this later in the video ;)

[@motioninmind6015]

I leaned a while ago to have faith in rewboss. Those points you're thinking he's forgetting? He'll make them, and more accurately than you or I could 👍🏼

[@HotelPapa100]

I missed one thing in this: What was the impulse making Middle English develop into modern English?

[@rewboss]

The introduction of the printing press, and the use of English for official purposes.

[@mostlyguesses8385]

Not sure the impulse for modern English was printing press or king using English. Instead for vague reasons the 2m English started to use different speech patterns, drop endings, pronounce differently, etc. The king and his clerks can't force a bunch of farmers to do this .. Shakespeare by him time mostly didn't use full 2nd syllable for -ed, walked, jumped, hed pronounce it walkt jumpt which was just random change in language no king or clerk deciding this ...... Part of spelling problem is clerks from 1400 had to watch people ignore them and pronounce stuff contrary to their official spelling, one use to rhyme with lone but now is "won", the mob randomly does stupid stuff....

[@michaelschuckart2217]

HotelPapa100: "What was the impulse making Middle English develop into modern English?" MS: Time?

[@galdavonalgerri2101]

Please, how was the rack railway invented? I think you got me.

[@mickimicki]

Very off topic, but I really liked looking at the jumper you were wearing. Especially with the matching polo shirt collar.

[@heronimousbrapson863]

Now I'm even more confused...

[@sugarfrosted2005]

The language of Theseus (not Greek).

[@barbarossarotbart]

Two things: 1. According to this video Old English was very heavily influenced by Old Norse vio the Danes who lived in the Danelaw: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jprQhnqIjZ1kjJo 2. There have always been movement to purge foreign words from the German language beginning in the 17th century: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Sprache#Initiativen_gegen_den_Einfluss_fremder_Sprachen As far as I know there never was a movement trying to do the same for the Enfglish language.

[@John_Weiss]

Simon Roper is another go-to KZbinr for all things Old English.

[@theopuscula]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_purism_in_English

[@barbarossarotbart]

@@theopuscula Thanks!

[@robertyoung9611]

There is a "de-latinized" version of English called Anglish, with several websites and books on the subject. It is however mainly lighthearted and humorous, without any serious desire to change things. There are some interesting words suggested though.

[@theopuscula]

@@robertyoung9611 Yes and then there is (among others) the Inkhorn debate during and after the enlightenment period, which is pretty much exactly the time that elitist discussions of language purism in Germany started. See the wikipedia article linked above. To say that these tendencies never existed in English is wrong. It just so happens that English nowadays is first a language spoken throughout the world, so has become decentralised, and also the language that is now being borrowed from the most, i.e. discussions on language purism often (exclusively) focus on English words (and will reduce themselves only to English).

[@Leofwine]

1066 was a mistake, and William's meddling slowly put out the West Saxon literary language - the poor Peterborough monk of c. 1155, who wrote the last continuation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in what then clearly was Northern Middle English, had a very bad grasp of the language of Ælfric of Eyensham and Wulfstan II of York. Unfortunately, neither Chaucer nor the Royal Chancery could consult the monk known as “Temulous Hand of Worcester”, Layamon, or the writers of the AB-language on how to create a literary language based on the more conservative language from the South-West Midlands. Instead, East Midlands immigrants messed up the London dialect. Who *really* wrecked the Old English language were the Vikings who decided to stay, but didn't bother to take language classes with Ælfred the Great, Æthelwold or Ælfric of Eyensham. Their clipped-off, inflectionless language spread from North to South after the Plague with all the jobless who came to London. Yes, I'm a fan of Anglo-Saxon. Yes, I speak Late West Saxon.

[@sk.43821]

Thanks for the addendum.

[@John_Weiss]

With a username like, "Leofred," I'm not the least bit surprised that you speak Anglo-Saxon. 😆 Yeah, William the Bastard just got lucky. He landed right after Harald Godwinson had just finished repelling a Norse invasion, and what troops he had left were just flat-out exhausted.

[@cerdic6305]

I hope you enjoy speaking “Late West Saxon” but it’s a bit silly to be so upset about something that happened so long ago

[@jandron94]

@@John_Weiss Well William did not force the Anglos to speed up and engage combat asap. It was a miscalculation by the Anglos who would have better stayed and rested a while in London to regroup more forces before fighting the "French".

[@jandron94]

Too many French-derived vocabulary in your comment...

[@schutzemiguel]

loved this! As someone who's been living in Germany for a couple years, I too noticed the prevelance of latin words in more formal/academic speech, as well as in the press. I must say I find it hilarious that to me normal vocabulary (romance-language native speaker) ends up perceived as erudite. That said I took have been pressing Germans to teach me germanic alternatives. For example, Einkaufshalle anstatt Supermarkt, or my crusade against "egal", wherein I attempted first to recover the old meaning of meaning "Gleich", but now just throwing Gleichgültig at people

[@wohlhabendermanager]

To me (native German speaker) "Einkaufshalle" sounds more like a shopping mall, not a supermarket, though. 🤔

[@jandron94]

Just take a look at the vocabulary you used in your comment : 40% (if not more) French or Latin derived...

[@wolfgangthiele9147]

I recently read that Henry IV was the first King of England (after the Norman conquest) whose first language wasn't French. This was 300 year after the arrival of the Normans!

[@seamonster936]

That is debatable. As Rewboss points out this is a slow process. His grandfather Edward III could speak the common Middle English vernacular well enough to bolster support for money during the Hundred Year’s War. His cousin Richard II wrote (or supervised) the commission of a cookbook in English, this was just before the printing press in England. But most telling is that his father John of Gaunt was a close friend and sponsor of the courtier and ‘civil servant’ Geoffrey Chaucer whose seminal work Canterbury Tales cemented Middle English as a court and chancery or official language.

[@mostlyguesses8385]

.. yes French held on long in England. But the Roman language too got rejected for English, despite 40ad to 400. But roman wiped out the Celtic language of France starting in 40bc. German lanuages are hard to wipe out, Celtic language are soooooo complex people are glad to abandon them, haha .

[@Hand-in-Shot_Productions]

I have heard a bit about the apparent impact of the Normans on Middle English, but I found this quite informative! For instance, I learned that the nobles begun speaking _English_ when they took over! Apparently, unlike what Olly said, the Normans didn't assimilate the English... the English assimilated the _Normans!_ Furthermore, I also learned that (as you said at 5:23) the rack railway was "invented accidentally" (I am interested in trains, yet I didn't know that!), that "perspire" was a scientific term turned into an euphemism for "sweating", and that some Germans tried to remove _French_ influences from the German language. Thanks for the video!

[@edreeves6440]

This is similar to what happened after 300 years of Dutch occupation of Indonesia, the local Indonesian languages were not greatly influenced by Dutch words at all. Although the Dutch were in control and left a lasting legacy in terms of buildings, railroads and roads, for example, their numbers were never great, their power emanated from the barrel of a gun and their primary motivation was trade and profiteering. Now it's fair to say that English is the dominant instigator of change in the now official Indonesian language (I won't use "bahasa", it just means language). To some extent, English words are even replacing existing words, for example "erupsi" in place of "letusan".

[@tzveeble1679]

Lingua franca, not lingua frenca. What's 'danger' in English? Or maybe the French learned that one from the English, as danger is periculum in Latin 😊

[@gandigooglegandigoogle7202]

I think you have a biased opinion .... French imposed itself everywhere from 1066, the only fact that English could survive is that French could not completely invest the countryside. We must not forget that French was the official language! Today it is estimated that 66% of English words are of French origin, today only 34% of Old English and Saxon remain. We can therefore say that English has survived in its grammatical form but not in the words themselves. There are even areas in which French represents much more than 66%, for example commerce, real estate, the art of the table and the cuisine or even that of clothing, art, toiletries etc....on the other hand English is above 34% in the words used in peasantry, in agriculture, in tools or farm animals etc... it appears that in my last sentences almost all the words are of French origin: opinion - imposed - survive - completely - invest - official - language - estimated - origin - remain - grammatical - form - represents - example - commerce - art - table - cuisine - toilettries - peasantry - agriculture - farm - animals - appears - sentences ........ realize, modern English today is much closer to French than to Old English. And if the English, during the last century, managed to understand German a little, it is quite simply that French was spoken for a long time on German territory (which was entirely French under Charlemagne for example) or during the Empire or the All of Bavaria spoke French,...moreover, French was spoken in all the European courts...French also permeated the German language and many words are similar or very similar too, such as: chance - carambolage - orange - perfume - boulevard etc....but it appears that the Saxon influence is more visible in the grammar than in the words.

[@solicitr666]

The more accurate flag would be that of Frisia,... I wouldn't overstate the effect of Danelaw grammatical simplification on West Saxon ("classical" Anglo-Saxon.) Away from Scandinavian influences it remained declined and gendered right into the 11th century. On the other hand, let us not understate the effect of French (or at least French overlordship) on the language of the commoners, even if Norman-French was only spoken by a thin upper crust of immigrant aristocrats. One can see this clearly in the later entries of the Peterborough Chronicle, where the evolution over the course of nine post-Conquest decades can be traced pretty clearly. By the time we get to the famous "anarchy" entry for 1154, we have arguably arrived at early Middle English, differentiated from the entries from a century prior by grammatical simplification, and a smattering - but only a smattering - of French-derived vocabulary, as well as some interesting changes in the pronunciation of OE words (e.g. cyning > king). English had become a demotic vernacular, and the niceties of formal grammar had worn away. PS: a fair amount of Latin had already arrived in OE quite early, with Christianization and the ecclesiastical influence.

[@relgeiz2]

I'assume that this video is an experiment. A successful experiment that suits you extremely well and that is also particularly interesting, informative and entertaining.

[@lohphat]

English is very much still structurally Germanic. The French gave us vocabulary, not grammar. Modern English really has a Scandinavian grammar given to us by the Danish vikings when they invaded England in the 8th century. Our current sentence word order are very similar to Scandinavian (other than the inverted subject/verb in questions). Because the grammatical gender for nouns between Old English, Old Norse, and then the Norman French, differed, that helped influence English to drop grammatical gender due to those conflicts.

[@heronimousbrapson863]

Except perhaps for word order.

[@OntarioTrafficMan]

Yeah I was also going to mention word order - apart from putting adjectives before their nouns, we basically use French word order. The verb order inversion from other germanic languages is very rare in English nowadays.

[@OntarioTrafficMan]

Verb order example: English: I was warm. Yesterday I was warm. I said that I was warm. Dutch: Ik was warm. Gisteren was ik warm. Ik zei dat ik warm was. French: J'avais chaud Hier j'avais chaud J'ai dit que j'avais chaud

[@InfiniteDeckhand]

''The French gave us vocabulary, not grammar. '' Not true. Remember the gerund a.k.a. the ''-ing'' ending of verbs? That's a grammatical feature copied from romance languages.

[@lohphat]

@@OntarioTrafficMan Except with object pronouns. I give it [a book] to him. Je le lui donne.

[@johndue2366]

It is possible to buy groceries 7 day a week in Denmark 🙂

[@leonardhirtle3645]

That gentleman that you were referring to thinks himself a cunning linguist.

[@thato596]

3:00 i also see that problem all the time on the internet. people will mix up words between german and germanic and then some people will say english comes from german

[@sk.43821]

Präzise Zerlegung 👍

[@Reichsritter]

English has a lot of French influence that much is true. Anglo-Saxon was a dialect of Low German or well Saxon German at the time. It became English by adopting French and Latin words.

[@sk.43821]

Is Old English also identical to Anglo-Saxon?

[@Reichsritter]

@@sk.43821 Yes, in the context of being "Anglo-Saxon", definitely. there were different tongues before, Saxon and Anglish seperatly.

[@frankhooper7871]

I'd say that English _vocabulary_ shows a lot of French influence - grammar, not so much. Grammatically we remain closer to our germanic cousins.

[@Reichsritter]

@@frankhooper7871 Yes, the core of the language remains more Germanic than Latin.

[@sk.43821]

@barbarossarotbart mentioned also Old Norse influences. See his comment as well.

[@GunRunner106]

iirc it was like a thing at court with the kings, where it was like the high society thing to only talk in french there or smths to that effect?

[@reinhard8053]

Yes, we use many words from other languages in German. Of course Latin and Greek, but also French and nowadays English. But especially in medicine, at least for normal non scientific usage I think we have more german words than in English !? E.g. the names for the doctors: Hautarzt, Augenarzt, Hals-Nasen-Ohrenarzt...

[@rewboss]

Well, "Arzt" comes from the Greek word "archiatros" via Latin. And for that last one, we have our "ear, nose and throat doctors".

[@tupG]

Of all the Germanic languages, English is the odd one out. Norman French, together with previous Viking invasions, left an indelible mark on the English language. And I'm not only referring to the added vocabulary but also the simplification in grammar. Any Swedish speaker can learn Danish, Norwegian, Dutch and, yes, German in a very short time. Those languages are so similar, it's easy to pick up any of the other ones. I used to work in numerous countries installing machinery and it didn't take too long for me to wrap my ear around Germanic language such as Dutch, with the exception of English. For this language I really needed to sit down and study it.

[@rewboss]

Norman French didn't really affect the English language much. Mostly, because it became the official language of royalty, government and the courts, it left English without an official written standard, and so it fragmented into different dialects that weren't recombined until the end of the Middle English period. The "simplification of the grammar" -- by which you mean the transition from a synthetic to an analytic grammar -- was already well underway by the time the Normans arrived, and it seems to have been contact with Norse traders that helped to accelerate the process: certainly many changes in grammar started on the east coast, and not -- as you would expect if this were a Norman influence -- near the centres of power, such as London. Basically, traders found it easier to communicate across languages if they used syntactical constructions instead of bound morphemes. One of the most profound influences on the English language was actually the Great Vowel Shift, which took a few hundred years to complete and changed the way English was spoken, apparently driven by internal migrations rather than foreign invasions. The GSV had its greatest effect in the south, which is why northern dialects of English often retain at least some of the "continental" vowel sounds; unfortunately, English spelling rules became fixed about halfway through the process and never went through any comprehensive spelling reform.

[@hinzuzufugen7358]

Strong language affinities across the North Sea... I was surprised that Frisians, who don't speak Frisian anymore, that's extinct in Germany, but Lower German ("Platt" - scarcely in use tidt) use(d) to say "clock .." not "...Uhr". Reversely, Yorkshire English has preserved "kirk" for church and "gelt" for money. The latter blew my mind. Btw., on events as "Tag der Deutschen Einheit" , I mean the "Bürgerfest" for the broad public, most of the time, music in English language was performed, here in Erfurt. - I was appalled then by a music teacher (who grew up in Kasachstan and had to speak Russian, still struggling with German) who pronounces music titles such as "London Bridge is..." in German!

[@louismart]

Nothing about old Norse 🙁

[@ArmandoBellagio]

Guess you perforated that guy. Guess he wanted to keep it very simple for his viewers, but you have to be authentic too, so it's good that you pointed out all the mistakes. Wonder if he's going to react. Never heard of him before though

[@ruedigernassauer]

Another thing about Germanic German words: Most German words have one-syllable roots (if you do not count the schwa (ending "e") that some accents drop). They only get so long by prefixes and affixes and our way of writing combined words together. So, if you have a "German" root word with two syllables chances are it is a transformed Latin word or a recently introduced foreign word. Examples: Fenster (fenestra / window), Mauser (muta / change (in feathers or fur)), Tafel (tabula / table, though we have more common word for that, it is "Tisch", derived from discus), Söller (something like solar / attic), Acker (agros, acre, as agriculture was introduced by the Romans), Ziegel (tegula / tile), and newer words such as Balkon, Terrasse, Ticket... Even the word "Dach" (roof) is from Latin (tectus), as the old huts just had inclined walls (Wand, from wenden (to turn around) as they have two sides), no window (therefore the word "Fenster" was later introduced) and only an entry with a wooden closure (Tür, door).

[@jolotschka]

What about the Plantagenet 😊?

[@hassanalihusseini1717]

Was there not an English physicist who wanted to change English into a more Geremanic language? I remember he said "Uranium" should be called "Ymir stuff".

[@Nicoder6884]

6:11 You swapped beef & veal :P

[@hypatian9093]

The history and changes of the German languages are so interesting. Especially when people come and talk about '"all these foreign words nowadays" and you show them how many words aren't "German" at all. But don't let me start to rant about Heinrich von Stephan and his hundreds of new words ;)

[@jandron94]

Indeed the (partial) "Defrenchification" of the German language was a big mistake because it made the German language evenless universal. The incorporation of so many French and Latin derived vocabulary in English helped to make it a universal language whereas the Germans stuck to their all-German lego block constructions. The same mistake Flemings did with defrenchification of their vocabulary in the mid 20th century.

[@alittlebird3818]

@@jandron94 Even though i see your point, i have to disagree. I as a passionate language learner like to see languages being unique and able to express themselves with theit own words. I hate the fact that many people think that latin words are more beautiful because they can't inherently understand those words, as the words consist of not-native roots. Foreign words are connected with less emotions as just by looking at them, we cannot guess what they mean as the roots are not native. So they are perfect euphemisms, because they do not bear any emotion, but this is not always the case, because also latin words can become badly connotated. Because of the same reason those words tend to sound more inteligent. Geography is a word we couldn't guess its meaning of if we weren't taught its meanings. It just sounds "cool" but in our eyes the word is meaningless, unless you're greek. If someone came up with "Earth writing" we would have an idea of what it means. But it sounds less sophisticated and everyone could come up with it. Even children. I think especially in scientific fields native terms should be created along with the greek/latin words, so that it's inherently easier to understand the concept. And if we would replace native words with latin or greek words whenever we can, then languages would lose their uniqueness. We would just be one unified language with a few extras. I exaggerated here, but this is what it feels like. As if you would eat the same dish every day, but changing the sauce and the seasoning a bit. I really don't want languages to be just a copy of each other. Like i do not think that we must be pure, but we do not have to exaggerate with the loanwords

[@kaiserkueche]

Nice video, you corrected quite well the misleading things he was saying, just a quick note - 4:55 We can't speak about standard language before way later in history, and the dialects already existed and didn't just start to exist at that time. For example, as you may know, German began its standardisation process with the press and Luther, and the written form can be considered to be fixed in the 1730's (with obviously lots of reforms afterwards, it's an always ongoing process) So the written language was indeed Anglo-Norman, but there was no standardised form of English until way later (dunno exactely when because English isn't my expertise). We usually have this bias of perception of what standard/dialect are because of the modern view on it, but the situation before was really different, so we always need to know the context of how people lived and how they used languages Sorry that it's so poorly explained but I'm just on my phone writing it quickly so I am too lazy to provide you sources and a well developed and written explanation ^^;

[@rewboss]

Many important texts, including legal texts, were written in English before the Normans took over. That was the de facto standard, and that was the standard that was lost. The introduction of the printing press then prompted the formation of a _new_standard. Even German wasn't without its standard forms before Luther. Indeed, Luther himself made heavy use of Saxon Chancery, a standard form of German used by state officials in eastern central Germany. And this was after the demise of an earlier de facto standard of Middle High German, used in literature (particularly Minnesang poetry) in the 12th and 13th centuries.

[@kaiserkueche]

@@rewboss Indeed yes there were concensus for a quite unified writing at these periodes, especially the Middle High German with the Minnesänger as you pointed out. It's simply that I wouldn't have used „standard“ to designate this because it was different from what we call standard nowadays

[@ryanwidjaja4252]

8:34 I heard that there is a similar movement to "purify" English and replace non-Germanic words with Germanic words. This type of "pure English" is called "Anglish". So far, the effects of this movement are not as significant as in Germany, so English still have many Romance and Greek words.

[@cerdic6305]

I think it’s a stretch to call it a movement. It’s just an interesting linguistic experiment, but it won’t ever become a significant thing

[@Jules_Diplopia]

The Normans, were one step removed from the Vikings. Who adopted some old french before invading England. Well explained Rewboss. I love that I now live in the Netherlands, and can now see words that have gone from Germany to England, or vice versa, or from or to French. From Dutch, which has adopted words from French, German, and English, it is interesting to note that in certain areas, like naval terms words have gone in one direction in other areas of life words have gone the other way. Presumably following the trends.

[@jandron94]

The Normans were more like 5 steps removed from Vickings... Also the Norman invasion force was only 1/3 Norman... A vast majority of the men who were given titles and land in England after the conquest had been born and raised (and educated) in the whole Nothern-Western France...

[@Jules_Diplopia]

@@jandron94 Fair enough. But Rewboss is correct in that William did not make the English speak French. As always mixing of peoples and languages takes time.

[@jandron94]

@@Jules_Diplopia I think he did not care whatever language the masses, ie the peasants, spoke. His spent most of his time in Normandy. Of course the influence was slow and gradual.

[@McKinley1901]

"Who adopted some old french before invading England." They did not "adopt some old French", they basically replaced their original Germanic Viking language with the local Latin-derived French language. Which is exactly what rewboss said in his video, incidentally...

[@jandron94]

@@McKinley1901 They assimilated to the local population while still retaining the power locally. Just like Franks did previously nearby in Northern France. The Norman and Plantagenet rule over England and all the associated French influence in many aspects (language, feudalism, arts, language) could only happen because of the initial conquest. Rewboss is wrong in denying the fact that the Norman Conquest initiated a radical progressive transformation of the English language. I don't know why but he is in denial that a language ending up with a third of its vocabulary stemming out of a totally different branch (French/Latin vs Germanic/Norse) is spectacular (this the most differientiating aspect compared to other Germanic languages).

[@Andreas_42]

A woman who grew up on the isle of Jersey told me once she had to take classes in Jèrrais in school. She described it to me as some kind of old fashioned french.

[@rewboss]

Jèrriais evolved from Old Norman, so although it's not technically true to call it "old-fashioned French", it is closely related. If you go to Jersey Airport you can see the phrase "Welcome to Jersey" in Jèrriais, which is "Seyiz les beinv'nus à Jérri" -- in modern French it would be "Bienvenue à Jersey". The language is in serious danger of dying out, so the local authorities have been encouraging schools to give lessons in the language in an effort to save it.

[@jandron94]

Having visited the Island of Jersey in the mid 80's, coming from Brittany, I could already notice that the "French" language in Jersey only reflected in some toponyms. Outside of that the French language or Jersiais was nowhere to be heard or seen. Surely much more people on the Island do know French as a second language (even if very limited and scholar) than Jersiais. A very British enclave within that Breton-Norman part of the Channel. Jersiais is a langue d'oil as French is and was surely much influenced by modern French until it got displaced by English in the 20th century.

[@motioninmind6015]

Fantastic! I love this channel 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

[@gwaptiva]

I'd posit that Middle English started to transition to modern English from 1476, when the printing press was introduced into England. [edit: btw, Soziale Medien is indeed not borrowed from Latin, but from English]

[@HenryLoenwind]

While the term with that specific meaning is borrowed from English, the words it consists of already were present in German and not taken from English. When social media popped up, it was just very convenient that German had the same words so people didn't have to find a new translation for the term.

[@MartinAhlman]

I just wanted to say that English "benefited" a lot from Old Norse, et al. See what I did there :-D

[@mostlyguesses8385]

Hmm, good point, but if not Normans was changes in English to middleenglish just random or just completing the simplication the Vikings started in the north ... As linguist Jon McWhorter says language takes random walks like a cat, so it seems random.... Has German changed much over recent centuries? As a trade language it should be simplyfing due to adult learners..... Hmm

[@noamto]

Olly's content is at best populist, and very far from scientific.

[@soundscape26]

That's an apt description of his channel yes.

[@titusmagnuseinuniversumaus6354]

7:28 *They had to speak and write old or ancient Greek and Latin, but not modern Greek*

[@johanneslehmann4915]

Vielleicht hat jemand auch einfach nur zu viel Crusader Kings 3 gespielt

[@Modosco]

Love these Videos

[@Thoringer]

3:23 thank you for pointing this out! It explains so much - for example, how the only non-Germanic language minority in Germany (I'm not talking about immigrant languages; they have their place, different topic) is Sorbian - and how this is almost all but gone.

[@mathiaslist6705]

3:20 Germany should not be allowed to call itself "Deutschland" as it is misleading and causes a lot of identification problems ... Actually it is called Germany in English because "Dutch" did not work anymore

[@kornsuwin]

cheese

[@DavidMaurand]

Linguist John McWhorter identifies English as a creole evolved of Anglo-Saxon, Norman, and Old Norse primarily. And no one has paid the debt on loan words.

[@rzeka]

Most linguists don't agree with his hypothesis. Personally, I don't agree with it either - it really stretches the definition of "creole" in my opinion.

[@kurteisner67]

@@rzeka Me neither. English is _not_ a creole language.

[@rewboss]

McWhorter's area of expertise is in the study of creoles, and tends to see everything through that lens. He conjectures that languages tend to become more complex, and it's only when adults attempt to learn foreign languages that they become simplified. That's a bold claim, and other linguists have pointed to a very large number of exceptions to his rule. It is true that it was contact with Old Norse which had a part in both English and Norse losing many of their grammatical features, but it probably accelerated a natural process. The Dutch language has also lost many of its synthetic traits, and although most Dutch people can speak English, nobody there is speaking a hybrid of English and Dutch. The German language isn't as far down that route, but has already lost an instrumental case and is in the process of possibly losing its genitive case. A creole is essentially an evolution of a pidgin, which is a basic means of communication between speakers of different languages for the purposes of trade. It becomes a creole when it's advanced enough to be used in everyday life. There's no sign that there ever was such a pidgin in 11th-century England: Anglo-Norman was the language of administration, Latin was the language of religion, and English was the language of everyday life.

[@DavidMaurand]

@@rewboss There is a tendency to think of a creole as a primitive process, and I think McWhorter's model is that it is an advanced process - and I think there is a lot to this framing. Modern English (and most modern languages) are their own new thing, much as many modern cities are built over the (I hate this word) ruins of previous cities. I know, that's an iffy metaphor and McWhorter acknowledges that he is pressing at the Kuhnian anomalies that complicate this matter. One of the influences he cites in the amalgam or alloy (better words than creole?) that is English involves the Semitic change of case with interstitial vowels (sing, sang, sung) but how did it get into English? And is 'English' even the right word for it any more? It has been shorn of the entire mechanical structure of AS, ON, and Norman 'French' - gone are gramatical gender and case inflection, its logic is instead derived from SVO machinery built from the durable but incompatible parts, mostly phonemes, of outdated machinery. Worldlish? Modern English has proven to be adaptible, resilient, and an excellent platform for abstract thought. Literacy and literature, it seems to me, are the powerful engines of such evolution. I can read Hawhorne and Shakespeare, Chaucer with difficulty, and Beowulf not at all. Your next Patreon subscriber will be me.

[@jandron94]

Basing a French influence narrative on the 11th century England is not much relevant, the French influence growing steadily on through a long and later period. Also comparing the present linguistic English influence in democratic, egalitarian, modern and rich countries like the Netherlands and 12th century English feudalism does not make sense. Ironicaly some of the first and nicest pieces of French litterature were written in England. To me English is indeed some sort of "limited" creole, it's has similarities with the Haitian creole which retained a few African roots. Probably that the early Haitian creole was closer to English (ie having a main African grammar root and more African vocabulary). There is nothing shameful in Creole, Haitian has become an official language. It could be compared to lingala of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

[@theopuscula]

Perspirare is also not a very common Latin word and doesn't mean sweat.

[@Saruman38]

Nobody said that. They were talking about the English word "perspire", which does mean sweat.

[@theopuscula]

@@Saruman38 So? In the context mentioned it is interesting to note that the Latin language was not only used as a signifier of education and euphemistically, but actually to the extent that the words might be used to mean something entirely different and adopted with this meaning - in fact, that word hardly ever means anything but sweat in English (and even its more literary connotation isn't really what it means in Latin; something which ocasionally happens to loan words, but I would say isn't that common in that absolute type of state.

[@Saruman38]

@@theopuscula You sounded like you were responding to a remark that wasn't made, that's why I felt the need to point out that neither Olly Richards nor rewboss were talking about what you seemed to be responding to, but apologies if I misunderstood your comment.

[@keineahnung5466]

Ich hatte ja immer gedacht, dass das Englische so leicht ist, weil es aus zwei kompletten Sprachen besteht und deswegen in der Grammatik immer einfacher wurde. Nun habe ich letztens gelesen, dass dies durchaus sein kann, aber eben nicht aus Germanisch und Französisch, sondern aus dem Germanischen der Angelsachsen die im Süden lebten und dem Germanischen der WIkinger, die den Norden und Osten beherrschten. Die beiden Sprachen sind zwar regional nicht weit auseinander, aber das Angelsachsische hat sich eben in den Jahrhunderten auf der Insel stark verändert.

[@mathiaslist6705]

just counting words in a dictionary or newspaper article proofs you wrong there --- there should be a lot more Germanic words but they simply aren't there

[@jandron94]

He only knows why he wants to minimize the French influence... whereas it's pretty obvious to any outsider that English is very French in many ways... Denial...

[@nolan1640]

I agree with your overall point, but you are downplaying the role that Norman french had on the English language. As much as 45% of the English language derives from French (old or Modern).

[@haeuptlingaberja4927]

Dude is running with Walter Scott's wildly inaccurate (and unfortunately consequential) Ivanhoe delusion. All you have to do to dispel such rubbish is to read Chaucer, who worked as a clerk in the Anglo-Norman courts and wrote in a wicked smart variety of Middle English.

[@nikobellic570]

So English didn't adopt most of its Latin/French loanwords directly because of the Battle of Hastings in 1066? That's so less dramatic and romantic than the truth. The Norman Conquest pivoted the British Isles away from Scandinavia and more towards mainland Europe. So maybe it's all as a consequence of 1066

[@rewboss]

No, it absolutely isn't a consequence of 1066. In fact, it was contact with Old Norse which had a far more profound effect on the English language: about the same time as the Norman Conquest, the east coast of Britain was being invaded by Scandinavians, and this started a process whereby both English and Norse became less synthetic and more analytic. The idea that the English language dramatically and suddenly changed after 1066 is a common myth.

[@Saruman38]

​@@rewboss I think you are vastly underestimating the influence of French, or rather Anglo-French, on English vocabulary (and yes, it was mainly English vocabulary which was affected, though spelling and pronunciation were also affected to a lesser extent). Most linguists acknowledge that anywhere between forty percent to two thirds of the English lexicon are derived from Latin, either directly or via French, which is a lot more "Romance" influence than in any other Germanic language (it should be noted that there is also a not insignificant amount of words that come from French but are ultimately Germanic in origin, generally coming from the Frankish language). You probably have already seen one of those pie charts on the web that describe the proportion of English words according to their etymological roots. Surely it is not a coincidence that this happened in the one Germanic country in Europe which was ruled by a French-speaking elite for centuries. An easy and fairly common exercise you can do is compare the same text translated in English, Dutch, German and one of the Nordic languages: you will see that the English version is a lot less Germanic in its lexicon than the others, with Dutch coming in at quite a distant second. As for the fact that many French loanwords or Latinates entered English several centuries after the Norman conquest: well obviously, we're talking about a gradual phenomenon here, not a sudden turn of events, as you seem to believe. Sure, Latin, Greek, and to a lesser extent French did influence all languages across Europe and not just English, but this was even more marked in English owing to the fact that it had been much more Frenchified/Latinised than its Germanic cousins in the preceding centuries. The trend to use non-Germanic words in England had begun much earlier than in the rest of Germanic Europe, and consequently had picked up a much stronger momentum there, as using words of French or Latin origin had become perfectly natural to most English speakers, more so than to speakers of, say, Dutch or German, to whom those types of words still had a distinct "foreign" flavour. This is especially highlighted by the fact that, even though the majority of everyday English vocabulary is of Germanic origin, there is still a significant portion of that everyday vocabulary which is derived from French. This, as far as I know, is unheard of in other Germanic languages, where French-derived words are for the most part confined to formal or literary registers, and this definitely cannot be explained by the rush towards "elite-sounding" Latin and Greek words which most European languages started to experience following the Renaissance. So anyway, no, English never "almost became French" as Olly Richards puts it, that's a gross exaggeration, but it certainly would have looked quite different from what it does now, especially (but not exclusively) in its vocabulary, had the Norman conquest not occurred. So saying that the "Normans didn't significantly change English" as you put it in a response to another commenter, sounds, will all due respect, a bit misinformed at best. Forty percent of a language's vocabulary (and bear in mind this is a low estimate) having been altered, directly or indirectly and over a prolonged period of time, by a single historical event which had far-reaching consequences in the history of the British monarchy, seems to be quite significant in my book.

[@jandron94]

@@rewboss nobody is saying that the effect on the English language was dramatic and sudden in 1066 but indeed 1066 was pivotal... the dramatic effect was on the long run... Any language that would have now around 40% of its vocabulary made up of another language would call it a dramatic (neither positive nor negative and not so sudden) change. That is without counting the spelling dramatic change, the forenames dramatic change, etc. The Roman conquest of Gauls was dramatic, including on language though it probably took a couple of centuries before "Gaulois" dialects to become extinct (they did not have a writing tradition so it favoured the extinction).

[@jandron94]

@@Saruman38 You are explaining in much better words and in a such more detailed manner the few points I made in my comments. Rewboss is in complete denial of real facts which is quite common on this issues among English male persons who are not acadamics but more like editorialists. Fore sure he knows the deep motives that pushed him to produce that video.

[@OntarioTrafficMan]

I think the point is that although the Norman invasion certainly did bring many Norman / French words to English, a lot of the French words in modern English actually came through later influences which would occurred regardless of the invasion of 1066

[@jandron94]

This guy probably belongs to the category of English (male) people who find it difficult to cope mentally with the fact that the French ("Normans" and other continental "French" successors) redefined "England" and as a consequence the English language. The fact that he is only correcting a many languages enthousiastic youtuber who makes obvious fast simplifications (and tiny errors) is quite telling. First of all the Norman concept is mainly a geographical concept, that is considering the Normans of 1066 as being Vickings is as irrelevant as considering the French of 1066 as "Franks" (the Germanic tribe). At Hastings only 1/3 of the invasion army was Norman, the rest being made up of Bretons, Flemish, Manceaux, Angevins, etc. William himself was a bastard... To put it simply : as a whole the invading force had maybe only 5% max of Vicking blood running in its veins. The old-Norman language belonged to the langues d'oïl range of dialects from which modern French mostly stems out. The Romance languages concept is a much broader upper range that does not only include the other Gallo-Romance languages of Langue d'Oc and Franco-Provençal but also other latin derived languages like Spanish, Italian, etc. The use here of that Romance concept is kind of a sweet "Latin" pill that helps that guy to swallow the bitter "French" pill. Also let's not forget that Normandy only starts 75km from Paris and that the river Seine is connecting Paris to Normandy. If Joan of Arc had not decided to kick the "Anglois" out of France then maybe the French language would have gained even more terrain in England... if if... For sure English remained a Germanic language but it is so full of French derived vocabulary (because, fine, car, easy, very, across, blue, quite, around, etc.). French imports in modern German are indeed numerous but much more limited compared to French imports in English (egal, interessant, tschüss, etc.,). In comparison to the English what the Germans do much better is that French words are in almost all cases pronounced as the French do (with a tiny hint of an accent). From 1066 to now the English monarchs had more often French than English as a first or second language : it speaks for itself.

[@jandron94]

2:30 this guy narrative is totally flawed, the Vickings who started settling in parts of "Normandy" in the 8th century had rapidely been assimilated by locals while still retaining the power (as a powerful vassal of the French king). As a whole it's not the same people who conquered England (mostly Western-North French origins, different traditions, religions, language, skills, etc.). It is a bit like wrongly saying "the Normans who conquered England then much later on founded colonies in North America..." He insinuates a continuum that did not exist... And they did not come to be assimilated : ravaging the North, Norman yoke, etc. The "Nortmen" who settled in Normandy left very little Scandinavian words in French language (a handful) but the Normands through the conquest of England, though they could noy care less about the local peasant English dialects, initiated a revamp of the English language based on a very rich French lexicon (the basic Germanic foundations were kept more or less as they were but the rest was hugely modified and enriched). They had a similar lasting effect on the local language as on the local architecture... (forts, cathedrals, etc).

[@etbadaboum]

Still, half of English words come from French! As we say in France, England is our best succeeding colony. :)

[@titusmagnuseinuniversumaus6354]

!Velociped wurde laut Wikipedia tatsächlich einmal wie im Video "Veloziped" geschrieben um sich in der Weimarer Republik von der französischen Sprache abzugrenzen; "Er (der Begriff Fahrrad) konnte sich letztlich durchsetzen, als in der Zeit der Weimarer Republik das Französische als die Sprache des Hochadels zusehends abgelehnt wurde." de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrrad#Name Danke an Herrn Boss.

[@Gilder-von-Schattenkreuz]

Well. Thats about right assuming you are a Follower of the Assumption that Germanic is a different Language alltogether which then Spawned other Languages like German, English etc. Thing is. The assumption many others follow is that Germanic is German and simply kept Developing while other Languages Branched off from it. And I also Subscribe to the Latter. And there is also the thing. Frankly. I dont think anyone in England Today would understand much of what someone from an England before the Norman Invasion says. Sê ðâ ðe hârwelle. êower sôðlic manian. ðêos neallestôslîtan missenlic? This is Old English as it was spoken before the Norman Invasion. Your really gonna tell me that you got any Idea what I said there without running it through a Translator ?

[@rewboss]

You should probably watch my previous video, which I linked to in the description. All languages "keep developing", that's the point, German included. There is never a definite point where you can say "here the language suddenly changed"; it's always a gradual change. The Normans didn't significantly change English; a lot of the changes that make English so very different from German had nothing to do with the Normans, and took decades or even centuries to complete. Here's a sample of Old High German: "Kirst, imbi ist hûcze! / Nû fluic dû, vihu mînaz, hera. / Fridu frôno in godes munt / heim zi comonne gisunt." Compare that with the Modern German translation: "Christ, der Bienenschwarm ist hier draußen! / Nun fliegt, meine Bienen, kommt. / Im Frieden des Herrn unter dem Schutz Gottes / kommt gesund zurück." So we look at certain linguistic events (which in reality took generations to complete) and so define languages. This isn't a matter of opinion, it's rooted in historical and linguistic fact. So the Proto-Germanic language was the ancestor of all Germanic languages. What we now call "German" split off when varieties spoken in what is now central and southern Germany underwent a sound change called the High German Consonant Shift; for example, while we still say "ship" with the original pronunciation, the High German Consonant Shift changed the "p" to an "f" and so the German word is "Schiff". Meanwhile, some of the other Germanic languages underwent different sound changes -- the Ingvaeonic Spirant Law, Anglo-Frisian Brightening, and the paletization of /k/ -- and some speakers of those dialects migrated to Britain where they became isolated from the other Germanic languages and that's what we take as the start of the English language. All these languages were of course affected by other languages at various points in their history, and English diverged quite sharply because it was relatively isolated, but it is still nonsense to say that English developed "from German". That's because German didn't become a language separate from the others until the High German Consonant Shift.

[@jandron94]

When Rewboss is reading a text in English he first takes out all the French derived words and only keeps the rest. After he has finished reading the text he has absolutely no clue what the text is about but he can then claim that the Normans (ie the French) had not a huge influence on the English language he is submitted to.

[@Gilder-von-Schattenkreuz]

@@rewboss I did. But thats the thing. There is no Definitive Point. Scientists had to Choose a Point to make the Border because there needed to be a Border. These Lines however are Choosen by Humans based on Human Opinion. Usually to Correlate with a Specific Shift or Event. But this is a Completely made up Concept. A Line in the Sand. In Reality this Language kept Changing with each Generation. There was no Lines between it. Instead. Languages only Changed when they either got Mixed with other Languages. Or when it got Split off from its Original Language and thus Develped Indepedently. Your Argument only Works if you use the Arbritrary Lines in the Sand that Scientists have Drawn to differentiate the Evolutionary Steps of a Language. But these are not there as Absolute Lines. They are only there so we can give them different names. And Scientists do know this. They do know that these Lines are just Lines drawn in the Sand to make it easier for us. And thus dont actually mean that People suddenly Spoke a Different Language. You could easily Draw 100 more Lines or No Lines at all if you wanted to. Based on whatever Requirements you Choose. And Scientifically that would Perfectly Correct. But it would also not change anything about this Language being there. Because its Imaginary Lines in the Sand to allow us to See the different Evolutionary Steps of the Language. But thats also the thing. Modern English, English and Old English are the same Language. They are just Different Evolutionary Stages of it. And one Importand Influence on English was the Norman Language. Much of that Influence was only added over Centuries. And much of that Influence also was filtered out over Centuries again. But that doesnt change that the Norman Language had a Great Influence on it.