English was not imported by the Anglo-Saxons

[MOESAN]

Sparky: The modern English language is a bastard language. It contains so many "loan words" with so many inconsistent rules that make it a very hard language for foreigners to work out. Often, one will ask "But why is this spelled similarly yet pronounced differently?" and the only answer, without going into technical etymology, is "Because it is." I'd guess that the early Picts in England spoke the same language, with tribal variations, but then were influenced by early invaders e.g. the Romans (Latin) Angles, Saxons and Jutes (Germanic) Vikings, French and so on.

you have discovered a new science? are you a wizard? (humor, no offense!) (- what links between a present day complicated and mixed language (for vocabulary) and an ancient presence of a germanic language in Britain??? I'm amazed. we need ancient texts or names, we have not at this stage - we have old saxon and then it was not so mixed! maybe I've not well understood your reasoning?
have a good evening nevertheless!

 

[MOESAN]

I know it will not put the thread very farther but I found a curious welsh word for "mother-in-law": 'chwegr' which evocates very well the german schwieger(mutter)' - welsh 'chw-' bret- 'c'hw-' << 'hw-' << I-E *sw- // i don't suppose it is a loanword from german... (where every S- before consonant became SCH-)
the old pronounciation of anglo-saxon(ic?) for 'wh-' (<< hw- << *kw-) gives the same in some old loanwords of welsh from anglo-saxon: 'chwip' (whip) - 'chwim' (whim) - 'chwyrlio' (whirl) - 'chwist' (whist) -
just for the fun -

 

[Jackson]

I know it will not put the thread very farther but I found a curious welsh word for "mother-in-law": 'chwegr' which evocates very well the german schwieger(mutter)' - welsh 'chw-' bret- 'c'hw-' << 'hw-' << I-E *sw- // i don't suppose it is a loanword from german... (where every S- before consonant became SCH-)
the old pronounciation of anglo-saxon(ic?) for 'wh-' (<< hw- << *kw-) gives the same in some old loanwords of welsh from anglo-saxon: 'chwip' (whip) - 'chwim' (whim) - 'chwyrlio' (whirl) - 'chwist' (whist) -
just for the fun -

Interesting. I've heard there's more loan words from Old English in Welsh than there is Welsh in English. Haven't read about it myself though so can't know if it's true.

 

[Aberdeen]

I know it will not put the thread very farther but I found a curious welsh word for "mother-in-law": 'chwegr' which evocates very well the german schwieger(mutter)' - welsh 'chw-' bret- 'c'hw-' << 'hw-' << I-E *sw- // i don't suppose it is a loanword from german... (where every S- before consonant became SCH-)
the old pronounciation of anglo-saxon(ic?) for 'wh-' (<< hw- << *kw-) gives the same in some old loanwords of welsh from anglo-saxon: 'chwip' (whip) - 'chwim' (whim) - 'chwyrlio' (whirl) - 'chwist' (whist) -
just for the fun -

Okay. Just for fun - I believe most linguists think that German was formed relatively late - maybe that's an example of continental Celtic language influencing German.

 

[MOESAN]

ABERDEEN /I 'll see if I can verify the direction of loanings but I think for the WH- words they came FROM late-germanic (A-Sax?) TO welsh, not the reverse - I 'll tell you then -

concerning the proximity of english and frisian, I noticed it (as did others, it's not a scoop) principally for vowels sounds (not always, by the way, let's not go too far), and some rare palatalizations of velars+/j/, but on other sides frisian remains far enough from english :
*sk- remained /sk/ even in implosive position what put it closer to danish (norvegian and swedish have the same conservative tendancy but palatalize into /sh/ before e / i / y / ä / ö ) - frisian: skip (ship, schip, schiff)- skuon (shoes, schoenen, schue) - skaad (shadow, schaduw) - skouder (shoulder, schouder, schulter) - skjin (tidy, schoon, schön°) - farsk (fresh, vers, frisch)
*th- preserved in english and in icelandic became 't' in frisian as in the other scandinavian languages and d in dutch, flemish and german -

 

[American Idiot]

Ancients seemed considering all Celts as big red haired wild people! No coherence - THERE IS NO RED HAIRS POPULATIONS: the less rare red-haired ones are in W-Scotland and Ireland, gaelic speaking regions and as a whole in celtic regions or regions having been under celtic control at some stage - the funnier is that Picts (a recent enough name in History, maybe replacing in North the Pretani name = Cruithni of the Gaels) were described sometimes as ugly small dark pigmented people!!! -

actually when Tacitus described the Caledonians (Picts of Scotland) he says they did in fact have red hair and he even ,mistakenly, thought they may have originally come from Northern Germany because they were so fair-skinned.
He says this in his book, The Agricola, and he would have actually been in Britain alongside Agricola, who was his father in law.

This would have come from a time when Brittania was a Roman province, so it was before any large scale migration from Ireland (Scotti) to Scotland had taken place.

The Picts were like all other Celtic-speaking groups in the British Isles. They were a mixture of both, descendants of darker, neolithic peoples and of more fairer, lighter-skinned Indo-European peoples who had originally brought the Celtic languages/culture to Britain and Ireland.

 

[toyomotor]

I do not know. Nevertheless, English is a Germanic tongue, we all know about the angles, Saxons and Jutes from continental Europe and their migrations to England. The "missing link" is probably R1b R-S21, an influx of the Germanic tribes from holland/Germany/Denmark towards England.

I agree, the very word "English" is derived from "Angles". There could not possibly have been an "English" language in the UK prior to the invasions of the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes. It defies logic to suggest otherwise. As I understand it, all of those invaders spoke versions of Old Germanic, making English basically a Germanic Language.

 

[American Idiot]

I agree, the very word "English" is derived from "Angles". There could not possibly have been an "English" language in the UK prior to the invasions of the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes. It defies logic to suggest otherwise. As I understand it, all of those invaders spoke versions of Old Germanic, making English basically a Germanic Language.

yeah, everything you just said has been well established and proven for a very, very long time now.

I seriously dont know why this thread was even started.

 

[Aberdeen]

yeah, everything you just said has been well established and proven for a very, very long time now.

I seriously dont know why this thread was even started.

The thread probably owes its start to the fact that a paediatrician named Stephen Oppenheimer wrote a book arguing that the genetics of modern Britain proves that English is an ancient language that originated in England. One doesn't have to know much about genetics or linguistics to dismiss this argument, but some people seem to find it convincing.

 

[American Idiot]

The thread probably owes its start to the fact that a paediatrician named Stephen Oppenheimer wrote a book arguing that the genetics of modern Britain proves that English is an ancient language that originated in England. One doesn't have to know much about genetics or linguistics to dismiss this argument, but some people seem to find it convincing.

I understand what you are saying. You're right.

I just thought the Stephen Oppenheimer bullshit theory,(along with the Bryan Sykes bullshit theory), was widely dismissed and greatly outdated by this point.
I don't see how anyone can seriously still hold to that view.

Genetic studies have come a very long way since then.

 

[MOESAN]

I understand what you are saying. You're right.

I just thought the Stephen Oppenheimer bullshit theory,(along with the Bryan Sykes bullshit theory), was widely dismissed and greatly outdated by this point.
I don't see how anyone can seriously still hold to that view.

Genetic studies have come a very long way since then.

I would be rougher than you: the problem with them is not only their works are outdated (every science is eevrytime outdated) but that, with a good enough stuff yet, they made interpretations which were very surprising (very "forebiased" would I say with my bad english: like kinds of indiscutable 'a priori')