What’s so good about English?
I’ve never professed to be well educated. Coming from a family who by today’s standards would be considered poor, so too was my schooling. Hampered further by impatient, domineering parents and by a learning difficulty that back then I didn’t know the name of.
Once free of my father’s yoke I discovered that not only am I capable of learning, but that I often enjoy doing so, even if it means studying the same thing ten times in order to comprehend half of it and remember one quarter.
Recently I was recommended a DVD set “The Adventure of English” presented by Melvyn Bragg. So far I’ve only been able to watch the first 60 minutes (twice). This portion of the documentary expanded on something I was aware of since high school; that many modern synonyms in English arose from the Danes and Normans when they conquered England.
While I toy with the idea of becoming fluent in other languages, I doubt that this will ever happen, and therefore I have no knowledge of how English compares with any other language. Frankly the diverse influences in English have often left me wondering if it’s a “mongrel” language and thus overly complex. Often I’ve wondered if languages that are faithful to their root language (Eg: Latin) are easier and less cumbersome. I'm even less familiar with Asian languages, but I suspect that they'd be purer than English.
Take my hypothetical fursona for example; foxaroo. Were it only possible that nature could grant such a breeding you’d have a creature that could never leap so far or high as a kangaroo, nor hunt with the cunning or stealth of a fox, but possess some strengths of each. The vocabulary of the English language was greatly expanded by the Danes and the Normans and became very descriptive and poetic, but I’ve often wondered whether this larger set of words, and all the numerous rules of usage of the language, are really a blessing or a curse?
Thoughts?
Once free of my father’s yoke I discovered that not only am I capable of learning, but that I often enjoy doing so, even if it means studying the same thing ten times in order to comprehend half of it and remember one quarter.
Recently I was recommended a DVD set “The Adventure of English” presented by Melvyn Bragg. So far I’ve only been able to watch the first 60 minutes (twice). This portion of the documentary expanded on something I was aware of since high school; that many modern synonyms in English arose from the Danes and Normans when they conquered England.
While I toy with the idea of becoming fluent in other languages, I doubt that this will ever happen, and therefore I have no knowledge of how English compares with any other language. Frankly the diverse influences in English have often left me wondering if it’s a “mongrel” language and thus overly complex. Often I’ve wondered if languages that are faithful to their root language (Eg: Latin) are easier and less cumbersome. I'm even less familiar with Asian languages, but I suspect that they'd be purer than English.
Take my hypothetical fursona for example; foxaroo. Were it only possible that nature could grant such a breeding you’d have a creature that could never leap so far or high as a kangaroo, nor hunt with the cunning or stealth of a fox, but possess some strengths of each. The vocabulary of the English language was greatly expanded by the Danes and the Normans and became very descriptive and poetic, but I’ve often wondered whether this larger set of words, and all the numerous rules of usage of the language, are really a blessing or a curse?
Thoughts?