Re: English compared to other European languages

Seán O'Leathlóbhair wrote:

> That is indeed conservative. From looking at the contemporary
> Scandinavian languages, I had got the opposite impression.
> Icelandic is clearly very conservative but I had got the
> impression that Danish and Swedish had moved much further
> and probably been reformed a couple of times.
> I notice that you assimilate foreign words more than we do
> e.g. miljø. I thought that this indicated deliberate
> spelling reform.

A form like "miljø" is indeed the result of a deliberate change
(earlier: "milieu"). As are "medaille" > "medalje", "ressource" >
"resurse", "mayonnaise" > "majonæse", "polonaise" > "polonæse",
"checke" > "tjekke", "rutsche" > "rutsje", etc. In some cases the
new form is just an alternative, in others, it has replaced the
older spelling. All of the examples are comparatively recent, i.e.,
they have been introduced within the past 100 years and some are
even very recent. Sometimes things go in the opposite direction.
E.g., the alternative spelling "shampo" is no longer considered
correct. You have to use "shampoo". Another example is "creme"
which had the alternative form "kræm", and later "krem". From 2001,
the only valid form is "creme". Apparently nobody used "krem"
anyway.

--
Torsten
.