Lina Inverse said:
to 1) I'd say that the importance of this is vastly overestimated. Without English becoming the official language in North America, English would've never got only remotely as important as it is today.
That is true, but even with less speakers, English would still be dominant thanks to the British Empire. Without it, then who knows...
2) Indeed. The US are powerful enough to impose their language onto others, if they want it or not. As their language happens to be English (because the British settlers prevailed), English gets pushed. If other settlers would've been more successful, German or French would now be in that position.
Yes, but English still has the long-term advantage of being a mix of old German/Dutch anf old French, making it the only real Latino-Germanic language in Europe.
3) This is just a consequence of English becoming as important and wide-spread as it is today. If any other Language were to become as important and wide-spread, it would quickly accumulate an equally vast vocabulary.
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to 5) English is a Germanic language with mostly Germanic influences.
I think you should read more about the history of the English language. Old English (=Anglo-Saxon) was a language related to Dutch and the North German dialect ("Platte Duetsh"). However, the Danish Vikings invaded most of England (North, East and Center) in the 9th century, and created their own kingdom (Danelaw) with Old Norse as dominant language. We can still see their influence in people's name ending in "-son" in Northern England. When the Danes and Anglo-Saxon were united under one king, their language progressiely fused into a new one (Middle English). Words like egg, window, husband, etc. come from Old Norse, not Anglo-Saxon.
Then came William, Duke of Normandy, who conquered England in 1066. Although of Danish descent, he was born and raised in France and spoke only French. French was to remain the official language of England for the next 2 centuries (and the kings of England were still officially king of France thanks to their possession in France until Henry VIII). Latin and Greek were used by scholars and ecclesiastics, and Modern English as spoken by Shakespeare was already a fusion of those 5 languages : Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, Old French, Latin and Greek. Out of these 5, Anglo-Saxon and French make up the biggest part of the vocabulary.
Although there are some Latin influences, they shouldn't be overestimated.
As Great Britain is situated in the very north, and additionally northwards of the bellicous Germanic tribes which posed a major problem for the Romans, this shielded them pretty well from most Latin influences.
What do the Romans have to do with that ? After they left Britain, all the people left in Britain spoke Gaelic. When the Anglo-Saxon came, they pushed almost 100% (quite remarkable indeed) of these Gaelic speakers to Wales, Cornwall and a bit to Scotland too. When William I became king in 1066, nobody spoke Latin in Britain, and no Latin words subsisted. It all came after with the medieval scholars and the church.
Thus, English is easier to learn for people with a Germanic native language than for people with a Romance native language
It is only easier pronuciation-wise and for the basic everyday vocabulary. All the difficult words in English are almost identical to French. What's more, the English grammar (word order, plural in "-s", absence of declination, etc.) is again closer to French than German, due to the Norman influence.
6) "Flexible pronunciation" is a totally wrong term here. Any language that is spoken over an as vast areal as English will invariably end up with a vast array of dialects, if they want it or not, among which the pronunciation will vary quite a bit. This has nothing to do with "flexible pronunciation".
You are totally wrong. There are much, much more dialects and different pronuciation within the UK than in the USA. Have you ever travelled around England ? In Liverpool poeple would say "me hoos is in the centre of toon" (my house is in the centre of town). Never heard such strong regional accents in the States. That's the historic heritage, as "house" was pronouced "hoos" in Middle English. The French-Norman court respelled all Englis words like in French, so "hus" (or "hoos") became "house". The pronucation only changed with the "great vowel shift" around the Renaissance.
7) That's not quite right. Ok, the articles don't have a gender (only "the"), but besides that, all words (except those for inanimate things) do have a gender.
The only gender in English are for words like actor/actress, waitor/waitress, duke/duchess, king/queen, lion/lioness, or the like. Not for inanimate things.
Normally, male gender is assumed - if you want to denote female gender, you have to use a different word.
No. Even a "baby" is referred by "it" in English. It's neutral. Recently, when talking about a person whose sex is unknown (eg. "If you met
someone in the street"), we say "they" (or "he or she") and not "he", although the masculine used to be normal until the feminists came.
to 8)+9) This is only a consequence of English becoming as important as it is. If any other language (German, French, ...) would have become that important instead, it would have become the official language of science etc., and it would also be the preferred language for songs.
Not necessarily. Even within Europe, the UK has been more important in the development of sciences than most other countries. Germany is a good rival, but France is behind, and Italy, Spain or the other not even in the league. Have a look at the
Nobel prize for sciences, the UK has recieved 86, Germany 71 and France 47. Let us not forget than Germany's population is about 20% higher (even more before WWII, due to German war losses and the huge immigration from British colonies to the UK after the decolonisation).
As for music, why would French or especially German singers sing in English in their own countries ? Pop music was born in England with the Beattles, not in the States (although Rock was).
One very important point you have left out is the atrocious, totally unphonetic spelling. Even for native English speakers, it still poses a major problem
Yes, that's the biggest problem for learners of English. But that also allows for the richness of pronuciations. In what language
better than in English can you tell someone's socio-economic background from their accent ?
