• atro_city
    link
    fedilink
    14 months ago

    Isn’t English the amalgamation of like 5 different languages and if everything were broken down like this, English would sound just as ridiculous?

    • Nougat
      link
      fedilink
      04 months ago

      The Anglo-Saxons loved compound words. The vocabulary of Old English (and just before that) was very small, so putting words together was necessary for building more complex concepts.

      English, a Germanic tongue carried into Britain by the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians, has been influenced by:

      • Celtic languages
      • A tiny bit of Pictish
      • Old Norse
      • Latin
      • Greek
      • Norman Old French (a dialect somewhat distinct from the rest of Frankia)
      • Plenty of other things
      • Karyoplasma
        link
        fedilink
        14 months ago

        My favorite English compound word is bookkeeper. 3 consecutive double letters.