[geeks] English language [was: power (was Mr. Bill)]

[Sandwich Maker]

" To: geeks at sunhelp.org
" 
" On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:21:09 -0400 (EDT), Sandwich Maker wrote:
" > it always was since its birth.  saxon and danish in the first
" > millennium,
" 
" I'm not sure how much Danish crept into the dominant Old English
" dialect (Late West Saxon), but it certainly crept into other dialects
" and influences later versions of English.

certainly english today - hide and skin for example.

" > british [welsh gaelic]
" 
" Er ... probably not. First of all it's definitely not 'welsh
" gaelic' (and certain old friends who studied Welsh as a degree rather
" than computer science would be frothing at the mouth at the
" suggestion). Cymraeg ("Welsh") is only distantly related to Gaelic
" being descended from the earlier Brythonic which was a separate branch
" of the Celtic languages.

yes, i know it's not goidelic like irish/scots but brythonic - like
the gallic people in roman-era france and maybe germany.  iirc this is
the origin of brittany - when the saxons invaded britain, displaced
britons were invited in by their cross channel cousins [armoricans?],
but so many came that they changed the name...

the irish have myths/legends of coming from spain [mile d'easpain and
the milesians], which was celtic in roman times.  the scots came from
ireland, into a land already full of british celts.

" As to how much crept into modern English ... probably not very much
" (which is somewhat odd considering the founder of the House of Wessex
" was probably half-Brythonic). Certainly not on the scale of latin,
" greek, french, or even danish.
" 
" Wikipedia lists 11 words in English that are of Welsh origin, but of
" that list I'd probably only routinely use 6 (and half of those are
" English words in relation to 'celtic' things). There are apparently
" more Hungarian loan words than Welsh!

not really fair, but does that count place names?
________________________________________________________________________
Andrew Hay                                  the genius nature
internet rambler                            is to see what all have seen
adh at an.bradford.ma.us                       and think what none thought