Is English Romance?

Here's a Japanese word used in English.
skosh
[skōSH]
NOUN
US
informal
a small amount; a little.
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You know this discussion has devolved into absurdity when the author is defending his position by asking if loan words are ever "given back." This is typical internet "I can't be wrong" drivel now.

Oh, I see. Borrow really means to adopt and a loanword is adopted. It still doesn't change my stance. Doesn't adopt mean to become part of a family? Thus, English adopted Romance words in 1066 and has become a Romance language. Makes sense?

"Why not the vocabulary?"

You: "Because vocabulary is not a good determination of language origin because it is too mobile and transient for classification."

I: "Well, what is a good determination of language origin?"

You: "Grammar."

I: "But you cannot ignore the minority which is the vocabulary."

You: "No one is ignoring the minority."

I: "You are by ignoring vocabulary."

You: "No! I am not ignoring vocabulary. I agree there are thousands of Romance loanwords."

I: "And you disagree that English is Romance?"

You: "Correct! It is Germanic."

I: "Then it is by Germanic dominance that English is Germanic."

You: "No! It is not by dominance. English is ultimately Germanic."

I: "What about Romance loanwords in vocabulary?"

You: "They are discounted in language classification."

I: "Why?"

You: "Because language classification is determined by the grammatical structure not the overall vocabulary."


I, in turn, will ask, "Why not the vocabulary?"

You: "Because vocabulary is not a good determination of language origin because it is too mobile and transient for classification."

I: "Well, what is a good determination of language origin?"

You: "Grammar."

I: "But you cannot ignore the minority which is the vocabulary."

You: "No one is ignoring the minority."

I: "You are by ignoring vocabulary."

You: "No! I am not ignoring vocabulary. I agree there are thousands of Romance loanwords."

I: "And you disagree that English is Romance?"

You: "Correct! It is Germanic."

I: "Then it is by Germanic dominance that English is Germanic."

You: "No! It is not by dominance. English is ultimately Germanic."

I: "What about Romance loanwords in vocabulary?"

You: "They are discounted in language classification."

I: "Why?"

You: "Because language classification is determined by the grammatical structure not the overall vocabulary."


I, in turn, will ask, "Why not the vocabulary?"
It seems like you cannot answer this question. Every time someone tries to answer the question it raises another question - which raises another and so on until we arrive back at the original question. And why did we arrive back at the original question? Because it was never truly answered.

So, again I will ask, "Why not vocabulary?"

I should have corrected that: you can make up a new language family (language groups belong to a language family, my bad.)

You must define a new definition for proto-language as well, by the way.

So, again I will ask, "Why not vocabulary?"

What is the answer?

Simple answer: because it's differently used in linguistics since nearly 500 years.

As said: make up a new definition.

Simple answer: because it's differently used in linguistics since nearly 500 years.

That's what I said.

Then I asked why it's not used in language classification.

Grouping languages into families is based on grammatical similarities. Why is vocabulary, word etymology, adstratum, etc. not included with language classification?

I suggest that you publish some articles with your ideas in relevant specialist publications. Some other experts might follow you.

I have attempted. Publication is a long treacherous road.

I'm sure, your idea can be extrapolated to other languages than English as well.
Thus, German would be a Romance language as well (> Latin!).

Perhaps. I have not studied German nearly as much to know, however. But I have a sneaking suspicion that most every language has loanwords. In my opinion, linguistics takes a simplistic approach and matches every language to only one family (of course, with exception to creoles.) If that is the case, which hopefully I gave evidence to, I am not concerned with the study of linguistics. Because linguistics is superficial, I would much rather study the detail which makes a language what it is - i.e. English being both Germanic and Romance.

Well, that's called Historical Linguistics, a specialised branch of linguistics.

No need to réinventer la roue, to say in "Romance".

And I want to add to that. I am not interested in the official family classes. I want to classify the true language families and tie them together in their historical roots.