Re: Japanese learning, is anybody as frustrated as me?

From: James Rose (ceo_at_fat24.com)
Date: 12/10/04 

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 17:34:11 GMT

in article 31sfiiF3ep2m7U1@individual.net, jim_breen@hotmail.com at
jim_breen@hotmail.com wrote on 12/9/04 9:22 PM:

> Travers Naran <tnaran@direct.ca> dixit:
>
>> I've often said English is the finest version of French ever invented.
>> From what I learned of English's history, French & English grammar
>> began melding from the beginning of the Norman conquest and continued
>> to do so for quite some time (up until at least the 1700s).
>
> Another view is that while there is quite a bit of French vocabulary
> in English, the grammar is still largely the original fusion of
> two Germanic languages. After all we don't go saying "I never of it to
> him gave".

Ahh, but the Normans came to France by way of Denmark... picking up the
remnants of Roman culture which was just then disintegrating, and imparting
their Viking/Roman to their less sophisticated Franco-Germanic conquerees...
who now claim credit for the those same words in English.

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