From: Rick McCallister
Message: 61390
Date: 2008-11-04
> From: Andrew Jarrette <anjarrette@...>Most of the comparisons we see are based on the compositions of dictionaries. English lexicon is obviously overwhelmingly non-AS at the OED level but at the Swadesh level, isn't it about 90-95% Anglo-Saxon?
> Subject: [tied] Re: Scandinavia and the Germanic tribes such as Goths, Vandals, Angli and Saxones.
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Tuesday, November 4, 2008, 6:35 PM
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <BMScott@...> wrote:
> >
> > At 1:14:37 PM on Tuesday, November 4, 2008, Andrew
> Jarrette
> > wrote:
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > > And anyway this basically supports my point that
> English
> > > has always had a strong foreign element in its
> identity
> > > (OK, I didn't say it in so many words in my
> last posting
> > > but this is what I meant).
> >
> > But it's not true: OE wasn't particularly
> receptive to
> > foreign words, tending rather to use its own
> resources. The
> > techniques include extending the meanings of existing
> words,
> > creating new compounds (e.g., <leorning-cniht>
> for
> > <discipulus>), and calquing.
> >
> > Brian
> >
>
> I said "foreign element in its _identity_",
> meaning the ancestry, and
> therefore allegiances and identity, its speakers were held
> to have
> (variously from the Danish Scefings, from the Geats, from
> the Goths,
> from Seth, as well as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, plus
> Alfred's
> accomodation of less-foreign Mercians and later the
> Northumbrians and
> their Danish element). I suppose I should have said
> "the English"
> rather than "English". It seemed to me that the
> English developed a
> "xenotropic" tendency early on that developed
> into a torrent through
> much of the history of their language (as mentioned,
> English is now
> only about 20% English).
>
> Andrew