Re: 11th specimen of Archaeopteryx‏

[Stephen Dedman <dedmans@iinet.net.au>]

Now you're on my turf, and I'd say that all of these are contributing 
factors - but the main reason that English has come to eclipse French as 
the universal language is that, to quote James Nicoll, "the English 
language is as pure as a crib-house whore. It not only borrows words 
from other languages; it has on occasion chased other languages down 
dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their pockets for 
new vocabulary." (or as H. Beam Piper put it, English is the result of 
Norman soldiers trying to pick up Saxon tavern-wenches, and no more 
legitimate than their other offspring.)

Another contributing factor is that French assigns genders to all nouns; 
English doesn't, making it easier to acquire new vocabulary without 
requiring approval from the Academe.

Stephen Dedman


On 7/11/2011 12:00 PM, Tim Williams wrote:
> Augusto Haro<augustoharo@gmail.com>  wrote:
>
> > I would say French is not the universal language and English is just
> > because the British empire was able to defeat and expand more than the
> > French between the XVIII-XIX centuries.
>
>
> The universality of English was also helped immeasurably by the fact
> that one of Britain's conquests in the New World went on to become a
> superpower in the XX-XXI centuries.
>
>
>
> (No, it's not Jamaica.)
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Cheers
>
> Tim