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Evolution has produced the human race and all the animal species. It is also at work in other fields; none more so than language. Our own tongue is an amalgam of many languages and will continue to change in the future as it has in the past. English came from the German tribes, introduced here when the Angles and Saxons started to colonise Britain towards the end of the Roman occupation (AD 43 - 410). It, no doubt, soaked up names and words from the Celtic tongues spoken by the mass of the people in Roman Britain, as well as the odd Latin expression from the Roman administration. As Saxon English put down its roots it had its own variations -the English of King Alfred and Wessex differed from that of Northumbria, no doubt reflecting. two dialects brought over from Germany. So far, English was fundamentally a German language. The Viking invasions and eventual Viking monarchy brought in Norse names and words, until in 1066 the Normans, themselves old Vikings, brought the French tongue to add to the melting pot. By the Middle Ages, the Church and the Law continued to keep Latin alive and the ruling classes spoke French: the general population spoke middle English, a German tongue which had evolved by accepting words from Celtic, Norse and French. The Middle Ages saw Latin, French and English rubbing shoulders with each other so that by Elizabethan times English had become a very expressive tongue, with choices of words available for literary figures such as Shakespeare. English is probably the most expressive language in Europe. But Mediaeval English was not the end of the story: along the way it has picked up more French, Latin and Greek for scientific expression, as well as new vocabulary from the countries of the Empire it once ruled. Today, an American input is probably the strongest feature, often from expressions relating to popular music.
It will take a very long time for the many basic words which first gave us our language a German flavour to disappear. The vocabulary, however, continues to increase: by AD 2200 the dictionaries we all find essential will be even fatter volumes than they are now.
From Prof. Stephen Hawking (Companion to 'A Brief History of Time')
Key: OE(Old English or Saxon): ON (Old Norse) F (French): L (Latin): G (Greek)
| What | would | happen | if | and | when | the | Universe | stopped |
| OE | OE | ON | OE | OE | OE | OE | F from L | OE |
| expanding | and | began | to | contract | Would | the | Thermodynamic | Arrow |
| L | OE | OE | OE | L | OE | OE | G | OE |
| reverse | and | disorder | begin | to | increase | with | time | |
| F from L | OE | F | OE | OE | L | OE | OE |
Some obvious words borrowed from other countries:
Khaki, Bungalow (India), pom (Australia), Armada (Spain) Igloo (Eskimo)