English history from vikings?

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According to my teacher today, most American spoken English was from Great Britian. And Britian once was conquored by Norch (French) in some decades. So British speak English often compose of French language. But if that's the case, why the hell English nowadays is mixed up with Latin and Greek stuffs?
She told us English grammar was following Germanic rules. That we speak English that is Germanic format. So English alphabetics like a,b,c,d so on...were they deprived from England or Latin and Greece?

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Jesus Christ you never give up. England has been conquered many times. Firstly the Celts, then the Romans, the anglo-saxons, the vikings, the normans and then influxes of many languages...

English is a mixture of possibly hundreds of languages, mainly Anglo-Saxon (Germanic Tribes) with Greek and Roman flavours to it. For example the word 'a penny' comes from the norse 'pingin' (dunno the spelling) and this word also became the Irish Gaelic word 'pighin'.

Romans came and stayed till about 400 A.D. Then the Germanic Tribes or the Anglo-Saxons invaded.

Clearly you have no idea of British history, well I'm irish and we share alot with them. The Vikings came in the late 700's and soon came to stay. They set up towns and conquered vast tracts of land. By the year 1000, Viking power was crushed in Ireland at the Battle of Clontarf and rebellion stirred in England. The Vikings were kicked out and returned only to be defeated by Herald at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. The same year, William the Bastard, or William of Normandy landed in the south of England. They were called the Normans and were desendants of Vikings whom lived in Normandy in France. They defeated the Saxons at the battle of Hastings 1066 and ruled England.

English after this would be incomprehensible to all modern speakers. It slowly adapted and changed to what it is today.

The alphabet we use is the roman one. The Romans simply changed the Greek one and made their own one.

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Milfmaster9 wrote:

Jesus Christ you never give up. England has been conquered many times. Firstly the Celts, then the Romans, the anglo-saxons, the vikings, the normans and then influxes of many languages...

English is a mixture of possibly hundreds of languages, mainly Anglo-Saxon (Germanic Tribes) with Greek and Roman flavours to it. For example the word 'a penny' comes from the norse 'pingin' (dunno the spelling) and this word also became the Irish Gaelic word 'pighin'.

Romans came and stayed till about 400 A.D. Then the Germanic Tribes or the Anglo-Saxons invaded.

Clearly you have no idea of British history, well I'm irish and we share alot with them. The Vikings came in the late 700's and soon came to stay. They set up towns and conquered vast tracts of land. By the year 1000, Viking power was crushed in Ireland at the Battle of Clontarf and rebellion stirred in England. The Vikings were kicked out and returned only to be defeated by Herald at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. The same year, William the Bastard, or William of Normandy landed in the south of England. They were called the Normans and were desendants of Vikings whom lived in Normandy in France. They defeated the Saxons at the battle of Hastings 1066 and ruled England.

English after this would be incomprehensible to all modern speakers. It slowly adapted and changed to what it is today.

The alphabet we use is the roman one. The Romans simply changed the Greek one and made their own one.

So England is a special country among Europe. If England was formatted by French, German and Roman, why our current alphabetics are Romans? And why they changed the Greek one?

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It was changed to fit the existing language in terms of sound. The basic idea of the alphabet was good, but it had to be modifed to work with different sounds unique within a language.

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in reply to ps2huang-

Milfmaster9 wrote:

Jesus Christ you never give up.

LMFAO!!! as I fall off my chair!

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Certain languages don't have certain sounds, old Irish didn't have a 'P', thats why when the British can it was incorpiated into Gaelic. Before St. Patrick was known as Niamh Ciadrig, as a 'K' sound was used to take it's place, now he is Niamh Padraig. Languages change as a result of external forces and even internal ones.

Thanks but he doesn't!!

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Something nobody has mentioned yet is that the Vikings spoke virtually the same language as the early Anglo-Saxons. They were all Germanic peoples. French, in case you didn't know, is directly descended from Latin. So the two major influences on modern English are Old German and Old Norman French. As to why most Europeans use the Latin alphabet, it's because it suits the transcription of their languages very well. Why is it different from the Greek? Because the Romans (who spoke Latin) adapted from the Greek for their own needs. What's hard to understand about any of this?

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Yep Latin takes an aweful lot from Greek.

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I still don't get it--so you meant Latin stole the word elements from Greek?
Why the hell is this: I have a tiny-electronical dictionary, I typed some alphabetics of English onto it, and it shows those words were originally derived from Hebrew and Semetics but then later developed by Latin/Greeks?

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Oi! You forgot the Jutes! What is it with people?? The Jutes invaded as well. But you'd never know it. Celts, Romans, Saxons, Angles, Danes, Normans......not a bleedin' word about the Jutes. I would say the Jutes left a lot in the language. Words like....Tooting Bec, yes Tooting Bec is definitely Jute.

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I suppose, it's okay to honour the Jutish influence, which really can't be praised enough.

(There are still a lot of 'English schools' on the Isle of Wright to teach people proper English - the Isle of Wight had been one of the Jutish kingdoms!)

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I thought Niamh was a girl's name? Like Siobhan?

Lovely names, by the way, but different.

Welsh girls names are nice too, Megan, Mifanwy, Mair....

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Jute, what's that?

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A Jute is a mere Dane, an interloper, a usurper, nothing but a plundering, lusting, barbarian raider. Now, more aboriginal inhabitants of the British Isles were the Picts, themselves descended from Phoenician and Hittite ancestors. Archaeological evidence places the Picts in Northern coastal Britain late in the Neolithic, some 5000 years ago. Artifacts and philology lead to a Chaldean origin - hence "Caledonia". Not much really is known of them; even in Roman times, they were an almost mythic race, there were some small numbers of them remaining in what is now Scotland, and they were not much appreciated by the Romans, owing to their rather uncompromisingly warlike nature, which had as a significant focus the Roman occupiers. Much legend and fantasy attached to them; in the word "Pict", we have the origin of the word "Pixie", and Pictish shamans or holymen were called vitta, or vit, from whence derives the English word "Witch".

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What everyone seems to be ignoring here, is how these various invaders changed our fashions over the years.

The Romans caused a massive boom in the sandal market, whilst the Vikings heralded a craze for fur doublets and tin hats. The Normans, when they arrived, caused a furore when they tried to impress with their chain tunics and new heraldry adornments, which caused the "revolt of Nottingham" when men suddenly dressed in Lincoln Green outfits, and shot arrows at anything that wore armour and smelt of garlic.

Over the years, these fashions have somehow melded together, and with the introduction of new, lighter materials from the far east, have resulted in the traditional, yet practical everyday wear, seen out and about on the streets of London.............

.

http://k.domaindlx.com/lordellpus/pk1.jpg

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That's Pearl E King, the cockney sparrer.

What about the banshee?

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timberlandko wrote:

Archaeological evidence places the Picts in Northern coastal Britain late in the Neolithic, some 5000 years ago. Artifacts and philology lead to a Chaldean origin - hence "Caledonia".

Er- objection, but I can't offer any contradictory evidence yet.

Quote:

In addition to the Ptolemeic names, there are several recorded personal names of rulers from the north of Britain. Tacitus (in A.D. 97) mentions the Caledonian leader Calgacus. While Jackson interprets "Calgacus" as a Celtic name, he notes that "Caledonia" (which the early Romans used for all of Scotland) is not provably Celtic. Dio Cassius (A.D. 210) mentions a Caledonian "Argentocoxos" which is clearly a Celtic name meaning "silver- limb". There is an inscription from ca. A.D. 230 found at Colchester reading in part "LOSSIO . VEDA . DE . SVO . POSVIT . NEPOS . VEPOGENI . CALEDO", i.e. "[dedicated by] Lossio Ueda, at his own cost, nephew/grandson of Uepogenus, Caledonian". The names appear to be Celtic -- one of the names in the later king- lists (Uipoig namet) may contain a version or distortion of Uepogenus. The formula, highly unusual for a Latin inscription in giving a relationship other than "son of", is discussed in more detail later. Jackson speculates that "Lossio" may be related to the root in the place name "Loxa", interpreted as "crooked", and that "Ueda" may reflect the Celtic stem "*weid-" meaning "know". (These are clearly speculations, however.)

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timberlandko wrote:

A Jute is a mere Dane, an interloper, a usurper, nothing but a plundering, lusting, barbarian raider.

Yes, some say so, who went for holidays to Jutland.

(Still, one of the premier holiday regions for Germans.)

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Timber if this was a bar I would have to ask you to step outside They were more than visitors, they actually settled. So there. Very Happy

But good to see some folks know about Jutes though - early victims of ethnic cleansing . Crying or Very sad

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goodfielder wrote:

But good to see some folks know about Jutes though - early victims of ethnic cleansing .

That's debatable, even for those on the Isle of Wight and Hampshire ((They settled in Kent, too, as did the Frisians, who settled besides that in East Anglia and Lincolnshire.)

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English history from vikings?

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